photo credit: Daniela Tiberi
The Olympics is the perfect time to get together with friends and support one’s country. In America, nothing symbolizes pride like watching the U.S. teams dominate the events. Along with the 31 other sports in the summer Olympics, breaking, also known as breakdancing, was added to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Breaking is 16 dancers, 32 boys and girls total, and consists of two solo events. Each dancer is judged based on their dance moves. Moves are improvised on the spot after hearing their music, according to ESPN. The gold medalists were Philip Kim from Canada for the men, Ami Yuasa from Japan for the women.
“I feel like breakdancing being added isn’t really an Olympic sport. It’s competitive but I just don’t believe there are enough athletes willing to compete in it, at least ones that are talented. As I watched, I felt as if the dancers weren’t really doing anything special or anything that I could learn to do myself next week” freshman Elizabeth Vranich said, who had watched the Olympics with her neighbors.
Judges for breaking score based on series of moves done, technique, execution, originality and musicality. Points from technique will be taken off if the dancer doesn’t have a lot of control in their moves, and execution points are subtracted for not a lot of smoothness in those motions. All falls, pauses and slips result in a penalty, according to ESPN.
“I feel like breakdancing is a skill and an art, but not a sport,” Math Teacher Steven Geiger said, who had watched the Olympics over the summer.
Since breaking is new to the Olympics, it wasn’t taken very seriously. While competitive dancing is considered a sport, people watching the Paris Olympics break dancers were quick to form opinions.
“I feel like the Olympics are already pretty serious about all of the sports, except for maybe breakdancing, which I don’t even think I want to see them take more seriously,” Geiger said.
While many people thought the breakers weren’t talented, some viewers saw light in watching them. Not only is breakdancing something new to watch on the Olympic feed, but it introduces people to a sport they might learn to love. Some enjoyed watching breaking, whether it was for the competition aspect or for a good laugh.
“In the next Olympics I don’t think there is a sport I wouldn’t want to see. Although I don’t take breakdancing seriously, I still think it’s funny to watch” Vranich said.
The next Summer Olympics will be in 2028, located right here in the United States. While almost all the sports from this past Olympics will be returning in Los Angeles, breaking won’t be one of them. This is due to Breakdancing not “fitting their vision” for the 2028 games, and this decision was made even before 2024, in 2023, according to Yahoo Sports.
“I don’t think I would want to see break dancing again because it’s not a real sport!” Geiger said.
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