From Boogie Down Bronx to Place de la Concorde, breakdancing has made it to the Olympics.
There was trash talk, cheering and beatboxing in an atmosphere not found in any other sport.
The stands reportedly swayed due to the crowd’s pent-up energy.
There were moves, contortions and beats that came from the Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s, only transported 3,600 miles across the Atlantic, as 16 dancers picked up rhythms and adapted to them on the fly to make history.
The B-Girls competition began on Friday with Snoop Dogg imitating the French “Banging of the Brigadier” technique, which involves hitting the ground three times with a stick.
Sunny Choi of Queens also competed, representing the US team, and in the end, Japan’s Ami Yuasa (who competes under the nickname “Ami”) defeated Lithuania’s Dominika Banevic (“Nicka”) to win the first gold medal in the sport.
Neither Choi nor Logan Edra of Team USA made it past the round robin.
How Olympic breaking works
- Two DJs selected the music from a playlist of 400 songs – the dancers had no idea what to expect.
- The dancers had to perform a series of four movements: top rocks (standing), down rocks (close to the ground), power moves (somersaults and other maneuvers in between) and freezes (poses) that matched the rhythm of the music.
- A difficult movement is the windmill, where the upper body rolls on the ground and the legs form a V shape in the air.
- Another common movement is the six-step pattern, in which the feet alternate in a circular motion with one hand on the ground and the body close to it.
- Each one-on-one match consisted of three rounds of one minute each.
- Nine judges evaluated them on musicality, vocabulary, execution, technique and originality.
- The competition began with a round robin tournament in which two dancers from each group advanced to the championship class.
But the fact that breakdancing was happening here at all—that Ami’s and Nicka’s medals counted as much as Noah Lyles’ and Simone Biles’ medals—was as important as what happened with the B-girls on Friday or the B-boys on Saturday.
Uncertain future
Breaking is one of the sports making its debut at the 2024 Olympic Games, but breaking is not on the program in Los Angeles.
So this was more of a trial, a way to get the sport noticed and maybe lead to a return to the Olympics.
“I feel like I still shined and I still represented dance and had some moments,” Edra said. “It was such a big opportunity. It’s such a big platform and I’m really glad we’re here.”
Each of the rounds, from the round robin to the knockout stage, consisted of individual matches, with the top two representatives from each group advancing to the championship bracket.
Nine judges assessed the dancers on musicality, vocabulary, execution, technique and originality, the program said.
Contestants were tasked with combining top rocks, down rocks, power moves and freezes – moves essentially performed standing, close to the ground, with turns in between and in a pose – to music selected by two DJs, Stephen Fleg (DJ Fleg) of Brooklyn and Marcin Przeplasko (DJ Plash) of Poland, from a 400-song playlist that included 1970s funk and 1990s hip-hop, according to the New York Times.
The dancers didn’t know what music was coming, but they adapted.
“It’s very strange to feel like we have some sort of middle role, but it’s a very important role,” Fleg told the Times. “It’s the backbone of hip-hop and dance. Without music, there’s no dance.”
The day also featured plenty of viral moments. In the qualifying round, Afghanistan’s Manizha Talash donned a blue cape with the message “Free Afghan Women” after removing her outer dress just seconds into her performance.
According to Yahoo Sports, she did not speak to reporters about the cape afterward, but her opponent applauded, fans cheered and her translator and handler said, “I think what she did on stage is enough,” according to the outlet.
Australia’s Rachael Gunn (“Raygun”), a professor at Macquarie University, also captivated viewers on social media by simply wearing her country’s Olympic sweatshirt and a baseball cap that was different from the other outfits that appeared on stage during the competitions. And that was before she failed to receive a single vote from the judges in three rounds of competition – she relied on movements that were clumsy and uncoordinated compared to those of the other dancers.
“I didn’t realize we weren’t going to represent our country’s colors,” Gunn, who like Talash didn’t make it to the elimination round, told Yahoo Sports. “What’s going on?”
When it wasn’t a dancer’s turn, there were often shouts of heckling.
After China’s Liu Qingyi (number 671) froze on her head in the semifinals and clapped her feet while striking the pose, she waved her finger as Nicka tried to follow her.
The dancers jumped across the stage before starting their fight.
OLYMPIC GAMES 2024 IN PARIS
Between their sections, they swayed to the beat of the music and the movements of their opponents.
After Ami won the gold medal, he left the stage and started signing autographs – just like any other athlete would do.
“Breaking is my expression,” Yuasa said, according to AP. It is an “expression, an art, but I want to say that breaking could also be part of the sport.”
Maybe this was all a bit unusual for the Olympics, different from the usual sights and sounds in Tokyo and Rio and all the other places where the Summer Olympics have taken place.
Maybe it won’t happen again on this stage after 2024.
But the anticipation for the breakout was already great before the event.
The spectacle that followed took advantage of this.
“The Olympic Games had to end because they are like a breath of fresh air,” said Banevic.
