Breakdance flourishing at Paris Olympics shows the Games heading towards a youth-centric future

Champion Ami, who beat Lithuanian Nicka in the final, felt her gold medal would inspire more Japanese youngsters into the new sport

The makeshift venue for breaking at the La Concorde arena in Paris was a vibrant platform amalgamating music, dance and excitement | Photo Credit: Ritu Raj Konwar/The Hindu

The art form of breakdance took its biggest major sporting plunge spectacularly on its Olympics debut, steering the Games’ towards a youth-centric future.

The makeshift venue for breaking at the La Concorde arena in Paris was a vibrant platform amalgamating music, dance and excitement. The extraordinary show of agility, flexibility, rhythm and bravery – pepped up by one-on-one duels involving throwing challenges and intimidating your opponent – on day one ended on a high.

After entering the history books, Olympic’s first breaking champion, Japan’s B-girl Ami took some time to sink into the feeling. “I am in the dream. Slowly, I’m gonna understand what has happened to me. I’m happy about it and I really like to thank you all for your support,” said Ami on Friday night.

“I didn’t really focus on medals. For the final, I just wanted to show everything I had...Breaking is my expression, the expression of art. We could show what breaking is to the world.”

Ami, who beat Lithuanian Nicka in the final, felt her gold medal would inspire more Japanese youngsters into the new sport. “I think Japan is really good, every weekend there’s a jam, you can have fun and there’s also a big jam and a small jam. Japanese breaking is so good, I love it.”

Indian-origin Dutch B-girl India, who finished fourth after losing her bronze medal match to Chinese 671, loved the atmosphere. “The crowd was amazing. In the past years, it has grown, from the first (Youth) Olympic event in 2018 till now, it’s such a long time. I think it will only grow from here, now a lot of people outside of the breaking scene saw breaking and it will only be more and more (popular) from now on.”

Los Angeles-based Ukrainian B-girl Kate, who made it to the quarterfinals, dedicated her performance to her war-ravaged country where the art form is hugely popular. “Unfortunately, during the war, everything stopped. Not stopped, froze a bit, slowed down because people have different priorities. Before it was huge.

“I was born and raised there. I know a lot of people are watching me. I give them a little bit of hope. It’s the highest reward ever to motivate other people. If I can inspire or touch somebody from Ukraine with my dance, I’m happy,” said Kate, sending a message to breakers from other conflict zones to spread hope and happiness through their dance form.