SHOULD BREAKDANCING BE INCLUDED IN THE OLYMPICS?

SHOULD BREAKDANCING BE INCLUDED IN THE OLYMPICS?

Organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympics have proposed that breakdancing should be included as a new sport in the Olympic program. The sport must now await final approval from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has until December 2020 to make a final decision. I am certainly going to voice my opinion on this bizarre proposal and contact the IOC to let them know that I endorse the proposal 100%. ( Surprised you didn’t I? ). 

When did I become a breakdancing fan you ask? One evening we were enjoying an outdoor dinner in the Plaza Machado in Mazatlan, when a group of about a dozen young Mexican boys and girls started to congregate on the plaza. I wasn’t sure if it was going to turn into a gang fight or a swarming of the tourists. Instead, someone in the group started playing some loud hip hop music and the fun began. 

The group of about ten, teen or early twenty, boys and two girls began to dance collectively like a chorus line from Rockefeller Centre. They were very fast on their feet and the choreography was very impressive. Individuals then broke from the group and did a short session of break dancing with incredible speed and precision. As it turned out, each dancer was in fact challenging any other dancer to provide a better performance. Each dancer with a unique set of hand spins, flips, headstands, twirls and tumbles took my breath away. I, at first expected something mundane, and ended up being thoroughly entertained by this group of breakdancers demonstrating amazing agility, strength, body control, flexibility and endurance. In a matter of ten minutes they had sold me on the incredible athletic ability it requires to breakdance.

Breakdancing, also known as breaking, b-girling or b-boying, is a street dance style that evolved as part of the hip hop movement that originated among African American and Latin American youths in the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. In the past fifty years it has become a world wide phenomenon practised by youth (for obvious reasons) everywhere. If floor exercise in gymnastics can be considered an Olympic sport where competitors basically do a series of back and front flips, including body rotations and rolls, then breakdancing, in my opinion, is far more taxing and demanding. So let’s give breakdancing a thumbs up for inclusion in the 2024 Olympics.

Other events being considered are surfing, climbing, and skateboarding. If we have accepted beach volleyball as a sport, then I would accept surfing and skateboarding as well. Climbing, I am not sure. Three “sports” that did not make the consideration list for 2024 were squash, snooker and chess. I think that we are really starting to stretch the definition, (if there is one) of what is an Olympic sport. If we can accept chess, then can Texas Hold ‘em be far behind?

But two thumbs up for the inclusion of breakdancing, and if you have any doubts, check out the video at: https://youtu.be/kMao96niQ70