Olympics 2024: Breakdancing confirmed as new sport for Paris games
Skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing will debut at the delayed games in Tokyo next year.
Monday 7 December 2020 23:56, UK
Breakdancing has been added as an Olympic sport for the 2024 games being held in Paris.
The decision was confirmed by the International Olympic Committee on Monday, as it seeks to attract a younger audience to the historic competition.
Other newly added sports include skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing, all of which will debut at the delayed Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
Breakdancing will be called breaking when competitors take to the floor in Paris.
The idea was proposed two years ago after trials at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina, proved a success.
At the youth games, the contestants faced each other in one-on-one dance-offs.
Russian Sergei "Bumblebee" Chernyshev won gold in the men's competition, while Japan's Ramu "Ram" Kawai topped the podium in the women's ladder.
In 2024, the dance-offs will take place at a downtown venue in the French capital, alongside sport climbing and 3v3 basketball.
According to a 2019 Olympic programme commission report, an estimated one million people take part in breakdancing.
The 2019 Red Bull BC One World Final had more that 50 million views across a number of online platforms.
Logan "Logistx" Edra, a 17-year-old American dancer, said: "It can resonate with a lot of people because hip-hop culture resonates with a lot of people, hip-hop music resonates with a lot of people."
She added: "It being in the Olympics, it makes sense that people would refer to it as (a sport) but I think one thing for the breaking community is we want to make sure that it's not known as just a sport but an art, a sport, a culture."
Ronnie Abaldonado has been a competitive breakdancer since 2004 and won the 2007 Red Bull BC One World Final.
He said: "The biggest part is your stage presence and character and your rhythm, whether or not you're really feeling it.
"People can hit the moves but if you're not feeling what they're doing then you just kind of look robotic and that's what kind of separates it being a sport to it being an art form."
Breaking pioneer Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon said: "This is true folk art from the music to the dance, to the DJ to the rapper.
"We've already legitimized ourselves so we're not looking to the Olympics for legitimacy."