Olympics Adds First 'Urban Event' as Games Try To Diversify
Born in the streets of New York City during the 1970s, breakdancing has now made it to the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee this month added breaking, as the gyrations are now called, as a medal event for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing also will become Olympic sports beginning in July 2021, when the coronavirus-delayed 2020 Olympics are held in Tokyo, and those sports will continue in the Paris Games.
The IOC indicated the goal of breaking is to increase the youth and urban appeal of the Olympics.
However, Australian squash great Michelle Martin criticized the decision to add breaking instead of a sport such as squash, according to The Guardian.
“You just look at the whole thing and you just go, ‘Where’s the Olympics going?’ I know some people say breakdancing’s a sport, but … I don’t understand,” Martin said.
“The Olympics was all about a score, or it was a running race. There was a definitive answer and results to sports. You bring in all these judging things and it just gets so corrupt and so out of control. I just don’t get it anymore.”
But Martin said she had expected that her sport, which long has tried to become an Olympic medal event, would lose.
“After the last ones, you get to the point where it’s almost expected,” she said. … “I know what it was like, training for the sport. It’s one of the hardest sports to train for and play. They’ve obviously got something against squash, because it’s been rejected in the past; it just keeps getting overlooked. I don’t know, I don’t know what to say.”
Martin said the decision is “sort of making a mockery of what the Olympics is.”
“When you look at what it all used to stand for, the Olympics, it definitely fits in the category,” she said of squash. “What does the Olympics stands for these days? I don’t really know.
“The Olympics has lost what it was. Yes they’re trying to move with the times, but it’s creating a mockery of the thing.”
The addition of breakdancing was mocked on Twitter.
What crazy “sports” are you going to introduce next? Darts? Break-Dancing? Ballroom Dancing?
If you can’t measure it or time it it’s not sport!
“and the judges score is …” entirely subjective!
Be true to your roots!#ItsNotSport
— David Sherman (@Think_Tank_UK) December 19, 2020
As break dancing is announced as an event for the 2024 Olympics thousands of middle aged men think “I might have a crack at getting a medal, my headspin at the 4th year school disco was flawless”.
— Tangangaroo (@1882N17) December 7, 2020
Matt Carroll, the Olympic leader in Australia, put a positive spin on the change.
“The Olympic Games are adapting to a post-corona world as well as a continuation of the IOC’s Agenda 2020,” he told The Guardian. “These Paris Games will see absolute gender equality for the first time and a record number of mixed events.
“Add to that, the continuing evolution into more youth-oriented and urban sports, I think we will see unprecedented interest in these Paris Games. Sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing will all make their debut in Tokyo next year. Tokyo will also see new disciplines in BMX freestyle and 3-on-3 basketball,” he said.
“The Olympic Games are changing.”
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