Break dancing in Olympics: Yes, we want the Olympics committee to include break dance right away!
So, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) wants four new sports to be added to the existing Olympics menu — these include break dance, skateboarding, climbing and surfing.
Now, skateboarding, climbing and surfing have already been agreed on for next summer’s Tokyo Olympics. But the committee is still deliberating over the inclusion of break dance in the coming 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
The idea is very simple — and one we totally agree with.
“They contribute to make the programme of the Games more gender-balanced, more youthful and more urban,” the IOC President, Thomas Bach said at a news conference on Tuesday in Switzerland.
If only this realisation had come earlier. But then, happily, it's not too late either.
As the audience, watching a sporting event is always fun. Think IPL and how you have your entire khaandaan split into teams because mausaji’s favourite is in King’s X! Punjab, while maasiji’s is in Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Or FIFA, for that matter — when was the last time we Indians cheered so loudly for Croatia?
Heck, when did we even know about Croatia?
Olympics, sadly, doesn’t evoke such strong emotions. There are a lot of events, yeah, a ton of countries compete, but it doesn’t raise your adrenaline levels the way a cricket match does. In short, it can get a bit boring.
And that’s exactly what the IOC is trying to fix.
Bach believes that to attract people to sports, they have to go where the people are — and the people clearly love dancing more.
Having countries fight it out on the dance floor over a round of break dance ought to get the young crowd in, right?
Right.
Break dance, an acrobatic and athletic form of street dancing, was first showcased at the Summer Youth Olympics in October 2018 in Buenos Aires. Leading up to the Paris session, Bach promised that they will monitor the sport “to see how they perform, to see how they manage their sport, to look at the governance, to look at the integrity of their competitions, to look at the referring and judging system and so on.”
Even though the IOC doesn’t seem to be made up of people who’re actually aware of the dance scene, the fact they recognise break dancing, and want to commit to it, makes us skip a beat.
And then, we dance to that beat!