Breakdancing Will Be An Olympic Sport Starting With The Paris 2024 Summer Games
If, like me, you thought that dedicating one’s life to the art of breakdancing had gone out of fashion along with Fila tracksuits, Jheri curls, and Robbie Williams (above), we were wrong. Silly us. We forgot about Europe. ESPN reports that breakdancing, or simply “breaking” as they are going to call it, ensuring at least 30 more years of sweaty “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” jokes, has become an official Olympic sport. Beginning with the Paris 2024 summer games, along with skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing, breaking too, will be electric boogalooing its way to the Olympics.
See, I told you. 30. More. Years. According to ESPN:
GENEVA — Breakdancing became an official Olympic sport on Monday.
The International Olympic Committee’s pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program at the 2024 Paris Games.
Breakdancing will be called breaking at the Olympics, as it was in the 1970s by hip-hop pioneers in the United States.
Also confirmed for Paris by the IOC executive board were skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing.
Those three sports will make their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games which were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic by one year to open on July 23, 2021.
Apparently, the b-boys and b-girls of the world answered Cat Deely with a resounding “why yes we DO think we can dance” at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.
It was proposed by Paris organizers almost two years ago after positive trials at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. Breaking passed further stages of approval in 2019 from separate decisions by the IOC board and full membership.
In Paris, breaking has been given a prestige downtown venue, joining sport climbing and 3-on-3 basketball at Place de le Concorde.
Here’s what a breaking competition looks like with an Olympic announcer giving the play by play, or the flare by flare, as the case may be.
Breaking will make its Olympic Games debut, building on the success of the sport at the Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018.pic.twitter.com/ZthK3ZRxIv
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) December 7, 2020
I love that they have that fancy, slick performance space to work with, but I do hope they consider selling commemorative pieces of cardboard emblazoned with the 2024 Paris Summer Games insignia as a nod to the sport’s roots. Also, studded leather collars?
Pic: Wenn.com