Breakdancing to debut at 2024 Olympic Games in Paris

It’s time for B-boying enthusiasts to fire up their moves and boomboxes, as the International Olympic Committee (OIC) recently listed breakdancing as an official sport in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

It is the first dancesport to be launched at the world’s foremost sports competition, having been staged in the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires two years ago.

This was announced on December 7 by the IOC as part of their 2024 event program “centered on gender equality and youth.” 

It will enlist 16 male and 16 female breakdancers in one vs. one battles, in hopes that it would attract a young audience to the Olympics.

Elite breakdancing, otherwise known as “breaking”, will debut alongside other youth-oriented sports such as skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. All of which were scheduled to debut at the postponed Tokyo Games.

As part of its initiative to make the Games gender-balanced, Paris 2024 will enlist exactly 50 percent male and 50 percent female participants in its athlete lineup. 

“The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 next year will be the first gender-equal Olympic Games, with an overall 48.8 percent female participation, which will be further increased at Paris 2024, reaching the exact same number of male and female athletes for the first time in Olympic history,” IOC said.

IOC President Thomas Bach added, “With this programme, we are making the Olympic Games Paris 2024 fit for the post-corona world. We are further reducing the cost and complexity of hosting the Games. While we will achieve gender equality already at the upcoming Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, we will see for the first time in Olympic history the participation of the exact same number of female athletes as male athletes. There is also a strong focus on youth.” 

Tokyo 2020 is slated for July 23, 2021, while Paris 2024 is scheduled for July 26, 2024.