New Olympic addition ‘breaking’ new ground

The Olympics is a chance for sports fans to savour, admire and bet on a wide variety of events featuring the best athletes from around the world.

While many events are a traditional part of the Games, the schedule is always evolving and the new addition for Paris 2024 is the sport of ‘breaking’.

Although attracting a degree of confusion when it was announced as the newest Olympic sport, breaking is set to leave audiences stunned and amazed with plenty of spectators wondering ‘how on earth did they just do that?’

The jaw-dropping moves involved in this art form derive from its roots as a form of street dance popularised by African Americans and Latinos in New York in the early 1970s. The exaggerated dance style includes stylized footwork and requires tremendous athleticism to pull off moves such as spins, freezes, downrock, toprock and power moves. They may be phrases very few of us will be familiar with but hopefully breaking’s inclusion in the 2024 Olympics will broaden the appeal of this exciting spectacle to a wider global audience.

Breaking first made its way into the mainstream in the 80’s and 90’s when pop sensation Michael Jackson started to incorporate some of the more flamboyant moves associated with breaking into his dance routines, most notably the Moonwalk.

The dance has grown from strength to strength since its early inception and with emphasis placed on energy, movement, creativity, humour and even danger, it is sure to win over those who were initially sceptical.

Although this is the first time breaking has been a senior Olympic event, it is not the first time it has been used as an Olympic sport. Breaking was introduced at the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2018 and its success six years ago was enough to convince the powers that be to introduce it to the full Olympic roster.

How will this work as an Olympic sport?

A total of 16 athletes are set to participate in both the men’s and women’s events, where they will initially be divided into four groups of four.

These individual groups will take part in a round-robin style tournament where the top two in each group will qualify for the knock-out rounds with quarter-finals, semi-finals and the bronze and gold-medal finals.

Each one-on-one matchup, known as a ‘battle’, sees both competitors have up to 60 seconds to perform a routine to the live DJ’s music of choice, music that will come as a complete surprise to both athletes.?

Once both participants, also known as b-boys or b-girls, complete their 60-second improvised routines, five judges will score them according to their technique, execution, musicality and originality. The athlete who is awarded the highest score will win that round.

A battle is split into three rounds, with the first to win two rounds (best out of three) being declared the winner.

Who to look out for

The men’s number one is American Victor Montalvo, who won the World Championship in September after beating Canadian Philip Kim, who will be looking to reverse that result.

In the women’s division, World Championship finalists Dominika Banevic of Lithuania and Japan’s Ayumi Fukishima look the most likely medal contenders.

A total of 32 athletes, representing 15 different nations, are set to pioneer this new and innovative event that is hotly tipped to become a fan favourite of Paris 2024.

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