Break-dancing gets Olympic status; to debut at Paris 2024 in '100% gender equality' push

The International Olympic Committee on December 7 announced that it had registered ‘Breakdancing’ as an official Olympic sport. On Monday, the Olympics took to its official Twitter handle to inform that it had included the activity in the Paris 2024 sports programme. “Breaking will make its Olympic Games debut, building on the success of the sport at the Youth Olympic Games,” the committee wrote. Additionally, it approved skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing as three other new games included as reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020. “Today’s decision will help to make the Olympic Games Paris 2024 fit for a post-corona world,” the committee said in a release. 

According to Olympics committee, the idea behind the inclusion of the break-dance as the Olympics urban sport is to expand the youth-focused activity and make Olympics more engaging and inclusive for the younger generation outside the arenas. The new agenda was introduced in accordance with the recommendations of the Olympic Programme Commission. Main features of Paris 2024’s Olympic programme that will now consist of Break-dance will felicitate 50 per cent male and female participation, to promote gender equality. 

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Strong focus on 'youth'

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,” said IOC President Thomas Bach in a release. Breaking Dance will make its Olympic debut in Paris 2024, building on the success of the sport at the Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018.

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