Breakdancing Will Be An Official Sport In the 2024 Olympics
Electric boogaloo for the gold.
Breakdancing is still a thing. It did not fade after the early days of hip hop, it gradually began going legit, in a way. Now it’s about to become an official Olympic sport in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, France.
That’s right—before the 2020s are done someone will jackhammer, hand hop, and baby spin their way to the gold.
Looks like Vin Diesel won’t be a contender, though.
Here’s more from the Associated Press (AP) via ESPN:
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.
Also confirmed for Paris by the IOC executive board were skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing.
Okay, if your mental image of breakdancing looks a lot like young Vin Diesel’s inelegant routine in the video above, it’s worth noting that serious Breaking—which is what they’ll call it at the Olympics—is pretty obviously a sport as much as dance and requires some serious athleticism. Watch a video made to go with Red Bull‘s BC One, which the energy drink giant calls “the biggest one-on-one Breaking competition in the world.”
The AP also reports that even as the IOC is adding Breaking along with skateboarding and surfing, it is subtracting from some classic events as well. Boxing and weightlifting have been scaled back, with the latter reduced to 120 participants in Paris. The AP notes that this “is less than half of its total at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games” and the “sport could be dropped entirely due to its historic doping problems and IOC concerns over the pace and depth of reform at the International Weightlifting Federation.”
This change has been in the works since 2019 when the IOC addressed events proposed for 2024 in a statement that said the program would be “gender-balanced, more youth-focused and more urban” than before.
The Olympics is essentially working harder than in previous years to remain relevant, and will likely add other athletic pursuits like Parkour in the years to come.
Even now, there’s probably a screenwriter somewhere drafting a script for Breakin’ 3: Electric Boogaloo For the Gold.
Read This Next
