Talk about breaking news: The sport of breaking, also known as breakdancing, is making its Summer Olympics debut at this year’s Paris Games.
Hoping to lure younger audiences, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) added breaking to the 2024 Summer Olympics lineup back in 2020, urged on by Paris 2024 organizers who were inspired by the 2018 Youth Olympics’ breaking competition in Buenos Aires, per The Associated Press.
Now breaking is in the spotlight, especially with its impressive Paris 2024 venue: It joins 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle cycling, and skateboarding at Paris’ Place de la Concorde, the city’s largest public square.
As the Paris 2024 website notes, breaking is “characterized by acrobatic movements, stylized footwork, and the key role played by the DJ and the MC during battles.” The dance style evolved out of hip-hop culture in the Bronx during the 1970s, and international breaking competitions got underway in the 1990s.
“Athletes will use a combination of power moves — including windmills, the 6-step, and freezes — as they adapt their style and improvise to the beat of the DJ’s tracks in a bid to secure the judges’ votes and take home the first Olympic breaking medals,” Paris 2024 adds.
The Paris Games will feature breaking on August 9 and August 10, with one breaking event for men (“b-boys”) and one for women (“b-girls”). Among the competitors are four breakers representing the United States: Sunny Choi, Victor Montalvo, Logan “Logistx” Edra, and Jeffrey “Jeffro” Louis.
Choi grew up training in gymnastics, but these days, she’s all about breaking. “There’s no doubt in my mind this is a sport,” she told TIME. “You feel our energy. You feel the excitement, you feel the happiness or the anger or whatever emotion that the dancer is expressing in that moment. It’s so visceral and raw. I don’t think you get that anywhere else.”
Montalvo, meanwhile, is coming in hot off a gold medal win at the 2023 WDSF World Breaking Championship. “I lost the last three Olympic qualifying events. I kept on placing third. And I was just kind of discouraged. I’m like, All right, can I do it? Is it still possible for me to win one of these events?” he recalled to Olympics.com. “I made sure that I showed that I wanted it more. This was my only chance, and I gave it my all.”
Edra, at age 21, is the youngest breaker on Team USA, and she’s been entranced with breaking since she was 8. “It was like that feeling when you go to a rollercoaster and it’s scary, but you just want to keep doing it for some reason. … I always relate it to that feeling because it felt the exact same,” she told CNN Sport.
And Louis is another longtime breaking advocate: He wrote an email to the IOC in 2018, asking the committee to add breaking as an Olympic sport. “I didn’t get a response back,” he told TeamUSA.com with a laugh. “The email was probably poorly written, but I tried. I wanted to be a part of it somehow.”
Louis also knows that not everyone wants breaking represented at a sporting event watched by millions worldwide. “A lot of breakers feel we’ve got to keep the hip hop, keep it underground,” he said.
But showcasing breaking at the Paris Games, he added, is “going to enhance what we’re doing in the underground scene.”
2024 Paris Olympics Breaking Qualification Rounds, Friday, August 9, 10 a.m./9 a.m. Central, and Saturday, August 10, 10:30 a.m./9:30 a.m. Central, E!