Competitive Breakdancing Will Be a Sport at 2024 Paris Olympics

A new sport, breaking, will be introduced at the 2024 Paris Olympics after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board approved the new addition. Breaking is a competitive version of breakdancing and many people who compete and are involved in the sport have been advocates for including it in the Games. The street sport typically involves jumping, running and climbing over obstacles.

According to BBC Sport, breaking will be included in the list of sports included at the 2024 Paris Olympics with the list expected to be announced on Monday. Breaking will join surfing, skateboarding and climbing to be retained after their debuts at the delayed Tokyo Games in 2021.

However, parkour will not be part of the 2024 event as well as squash, billiard sports and chess after representatives of each faced unsuccessful campaigns.

Breaking was provisionally added to the 2024 Olympics program after it had debuted at the Olympics’ 2018 Summer Youth Games. Competitors consider the sport to have high entertainment value and have previously pushed for it to be added to the Olympics’ sport program since they believe it will be an attractive addition to the Games.

British breakdancer Karam Singh delved into the significance of the sport being included at the Games to the BBC.

“It’s going to be great for breaking as it gives us more recognition as a sport,” Singh said. “And for the Olympics, it will attract young people who may not follow some of the traditional sports.”

The IOC previously categorized breaking a provisional sport after a unanimous vote. The USA Breaking committee explained back in March that should the sport be approved to be included at the Olympics, they would be fully prepared. This involved creating a rulebook, in which a uniformed method of scoring could be established, as well as ensuring that all their athletes are brought through the system correctly as any other Olympic athlete would.

Antonio Castillo, chairman of the USA Breaking Committee, believes that breaking will be a perfect addition to the Olympics. “It has everything an Olympic sport needs,” he said, also claiming that the sport is ‘colorful, fun to watch and has excitement behind it.’

He also predicted that the sport will one day be a main event. The athletes are “doing amazing stuff and it’s not things that a regular person can do,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter what type of format you put it into, it still looks raw, it still looks like a street dance, it still looks fun, and that really is what attracts a lot of people to it.”

There are some concerns from the USA Breaking Committee, however, since it is likely that the Olympics will create their own scoring system for the sport at the Games. As a result, USA Breaking has insisted that they would like to be involved in the process in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the sport.

Castillo has previously said that, “Our goal is to have a say and have a voice in it because this is the birthplace, so we want to be involved in that process and hopefully we’ll influence it even at that level. Breaking is a part of American history, it has the roots, so we just want to make sure it’s represented well.”

The IOC has said that it wants the Games to be more gender balanced and youthful. This was important in their decision to include the event at Paris 2024 due to the remit of prioritizing events that they believed to have youth appeal and would aid in gender equality when selecting new events. Breaking therefore falls under that category with the Games organizers considering that it falls under their objectives of being popular amongst new and younger audiences.

Athletes are known as b-boys and b-girls and will be competing for a place on the Olympic podium in 2024. They will be judged based on technical ability and skill as well as consideration for creativity and style. Strength, speed, rhythm and agility will also be included and considered in the judges scoring.

Breaking combines the abilities of athleticism and artistry along with key elements of the sport such as top rocks which are usually a competitor’s introductory dance moves. This includes footwork, power moves and freezes. Power moves are eruptive displays, for example spins, and freezes are when the athletes stick a pose. Competitors also give themselves nicknames to compete under.

Competitive breaking is already in action with the formation of the Competitive Breakin’ League (CBL) in 2013. Their primary aim is “to organize youth Breakin’ (Breaking, Break Dance) competitions and support future generations of dancers by building an infrastructure of education, training, and guidelines for the sport for breakers in ages (5-17) and (18+),” their mission statement read.

The CBL was established in Washington DC in 2014 and organizes curriculum, workshops, tournaments and an annual tour of youth competitions leading to their Super Bowl – the National USA Breakin’ Championships, titled “Rock the Box”.