Breakdancing is officially an Olympic Sport

On Monday breakdancing was named an official Olympic sport and will be a medal event at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Skateboarding, Sport Climbing and Surfing were supposed to debut in Tokyo this year but the Games have been postponed until July 23, 2021 because of coronavirus. They will also be medal events in Paris.

To make room for the new sports, some weightlifting and boxing events have been cut from the program.

Breakdancing sprung from the streets of New York in the 1960’s and 70’s and became mainstream in the 1980’s when Michael Jackson started using breaking moves in his music videos.

Breakers were famous for their improvisation and still are, but moves such as ‘body-popping’ and ‘locking’ are always a joy to watch!

There are now more than 1 million breakers worldwide and some were even invited to perform for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 2004.

Breakers are clearly over the moon to be included in the Paris Olympics but they’re also keen to make sure breaking is not pigeonholed as a sport, because to them it’s more about art and culture.

There’s no news on who will judge the breaker events but they’ll definitely be looking for some dramatic spins, power moves and above all creativity.