By Elizabeth De Santiago
JournaliZm
The world watches in amazement as athletes from their respective countries compete in France. Olympic season is finally here. With the likes of Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and Naomi Osaka, this year’s Olympic games will be nothing short of exciting.
With all this excitement comes new opportunities. This year, a new sport will be appearing at the 2024 summer Olympics: breaking.
Breaking, also known as break-dancing, is a sport that combines dance and athletic movement. It requires athletes to utilize their strength and flexibility while moving to a beat.
This sport initially got its start in The Bronx, N.Y. in the ‘70s as a part of the “four disciplines of hip-hop” in African American and Latino communities along with graffiti, DJ’ing and MC’ing. It blends together elements of dancing, martial arts, gymnastics and a variety of other mediums. Breaking gained traction after mainstream artists like Michael Jackson started using moves like moonwalking in their videos.
Now, after the International Olympic Committee finalized its decision to add breaking as a sport for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the culture is even more prominent.
“I definitely don’t think anyone saw hip-hop going this far in its humble beginnings. Whether it was graffiti, whether it was DJ’ing, whether it was MC’ing, break-dancing,” Rapper Busta Rhymes said in an interview with Red Bull. “Progression is imperative.”
For the Olympics, breaking is a one-on-one competition, where breakers will be judged on their dance moves. There will be two separate events: B-Boys and B-Girls. The athletes will not know the track before they perform their freestyle against each other. A DJ will choose music and the dancers must adapt to the beat.
The US will be sending four athletes to the Olympics for breaking this year: B-Girl Logistix (Logan Edra), B-Girl Sunny (Sunny Choi), B-Boy Victor (Victor Montalvo) and B-Boy Jeffro (Jeffrey Louis). The first breaking event, the Women’s Pre-Qualifier Battle, will take place on Aug. 9.
Stay tuned for some sick moves as breaking breaks its way into the Olympics this summer.
Elizabeth De Santiago is an intern for Texas Metro News. She is a rising junior at Coppell High School. Her passion for journalism began after writing for her school’s student newspaper. In her free time she enjoys skate-boarding around her local park.
