SPIN TO WIN
New bid for Olympic break-dancing
Paris 2024: Electric Boogaloo! Popping and locking dancers could get their big ‘‘break’’ at the 2024 Paris Olympics, as organizers announced Thursday that break-dancing might worm its way onto the Summer Games program. The addition of the human-pretzel-making street dance — innovated in the South Bronx during the rise of hip-hop in the 1970s — would make the 2024 slate “more urban” and “morem artistic,” said Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris Games’ planning committee.
“This is a major step forward in our ambition to organize a unique Olympic Games,” he told Agence France-Presse. “Right from the beginning, our aim was to offer Games that would have an impact and the element of surprise.”
If breaking joins the program, it would be the fourth sport added to the offerings in the span of two Summer Olympics, with skateboarding, climbing and surfing set to debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
All four sports must still be OK’d by the International Olympic Committee after the 2020 Games before they can formally be added to the Paris program. But the IOC, which so far has approved the first three for 2020 but not beyond, seems ready to bust a move.
“We are pleased to see that Paris 2024’s proposal for new sports to the Olympic program is very much in line with the reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020, which is striving to make the Olympic program genderbalanced, more youth-focused and more urban,” the IOC said in a statement to CNN.
Estanguet, a three-time goldmedal-winning canoeist, agreed, telling AFP that the proposed sports “are as creative as spectacular, geared toward youth and completely in line with our vision.
“They reflect perfectly Paris 2024’s identity,” he said.
Break-dancing was an event at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, but has never been in the adult program.
In competitive break-dancing, opponents face off either individually or in teams. Breakers are judged on physical, interpretive and artistic quality.
The 2018 Buenos Aires competition included boys’, girls’ and mixed-gender breaking, featuring duos made up of one boy and one girl.