Olympic history was made over and over at the Games in Paris this summer. Records have been set, new stars arose, nations have taken home medals in all-new categories. But perhaps the biggest stir has come from the debut of breakdancing, or “breaking” as it is actually referred to, as an Olympic sport.
America is quite familiar with breaking, having played host to the origins of this type of dance battle. It emerged among African American and Puerto Rican communities in the Bronx, New York, and is usually set to songs with drum breaks, primarily soul, hip-hop, and funk. How did breakdancing end up at the Olympics, and what does it look like at the Games?
Breakdancing, or breaking, made its Olympic debut at the 2024 Paris Games
This elite stage got its first taste of breaking with the 2018 Summer Youth Games in Buenos Aires. It received such a warm reception that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided on December 7, 2021, to officially include breakdancing in the 2024 Olympics lineup. The goal of this move was to “young people and reward creativity and athletic performance,” the official Olympics website outlines.
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As of August 9, breakdancing is not on the schedule for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
The Paris Olympics had events featuring 16 men and 17 women, who first faced each other in a pre-qualifier battle; the winner advanced to the round robin, with the loser eliminated.
On this international stage for something so rooted in both artistry and physicality, breaking at the Olympics follows a set of guidelines for determining who wins and who loses. The dancers, known formally as breakers, or b-boys and b-girls, have a chance to face off with everyone they’re competing against. They are ranked based on how many rounds they’ve won.
Breaking at home, abroad as an Olympic event, and back home again
“Breaking” has been referred to as ’70s slang for “causing a disturbance,” “acting energetically,” and “getting excited,” and that’s exactly the energy breakdancing brings to the Olympic stage. The break in the dance name is a reference to the part in the song where the percussion takes control, in honor of the rhythm that so guides the breaker’s moves.
Of those moves, there are generally four types: freezes, downrock, toprock, and power moves. The birth of breaking is tied heavily to the birth of hip-hop and, upon its growth beyond the U.S. onto the international stage, breaking has become the subject of several dance committees. But as far as calling it dancing, or specifically, breakdancing, that’s technically not the term. If you’ve heard of this style as breakdancing, you’ve got plenty of company, but according to Victor Montalvo, who was the first American to qualify for breaking at the Paris Olympic Games, that name came more from the media than from the community itself.
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“A lot of breakers didn’t like it,” he explained, “especially underground breakers, the ones that weren’t commercialized.”
When all was said and done, Montalvo brought home a bronze medal in breaking for Team USA. Breaker Danis Civil won the silver medal for the home team France, while Philip Kim won the first-ever breaking Olympic gold medal for Team Canada.
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