A Comprehensive Guide to Breaking, the Newest Sport at the Olympics

The sport of breaking—competitive breakdancing—will make its Olympic debut in Paris. Yes, breaking has come a long way from an early-‘80s pop-culture fad that seemed to go the way of the Chia Pet. “Breaking is awesome because it's part of hip-hop culture and [in] hip-hop culture, it doesn't matter what color you are, who you are, where you're from, it's inclusive,” says American breaker Victor Montalvo. “That's what I love about breaking and that's what I want to show to the world. It's all about peace, love, unity, and having fun.”

With a dose of gold, silver, and bronze. Here’s what you need to know about the inaugural Olympic breaking event.

Wait, why is it called breaking, not breakdancing?

Breakers—more colloquially called B-boys or B-girls—don’t appreciate the term breakdancing. “If you call it breakdancing, you’re not a breaker,” says Sunny Choi, aka B-girl Sunny, who will compete for the U.S. in Paris. At parties in the Bronx in the 1970s, dancers would hit the floor during the instrumental interludes, or the break, on records, giving breaking, one of the core pillars of hip-hop, its name.

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Mass media started calling it breakdancing to broadly connote that dancing was involved, but the term harkens back to an outdated image of the sport. So Montalvo, B-boy Victor, tries to politely correct people. “They have all these stereotypes of what breaking was back in the day,” he says. “Dancing on the cardboard, doing butt spins. But it's evolved. The dance is stronger. The moves are bigger. It's more defined and structured.” 

How in the world did breaking become an Olympic sport? 

Although breaking faded from pop-culture consciousness in the late-1980s, competitions soon began to thrive worldwide. Battle of The Year, the first big global event, began in Germany in 1990, and Red Bull got in the mix in 2001, helping to organize the competitive circuit. The International Olympic Committee, always on the lookout for new sports to attract younger audiences, added breaking to the Youth Olympic Games for 2018, in Buenos Aires. The event was a hit, and in December 2020, the IOC announced that breaking would be added to the Olympic program in Paris, home to a strong breaking scene: back in 1982, New York City Rap Tour stopped in Paris during its jaunt through Europe, introducing the pillars of hip-hop to France, and the world.

When’s the competition?

The B-girls battle on Friday, August 9, starting at 10 a.m. E.T. The B-boys go the next day, August 10, also at 10 a.m. E.T. 

Where in Paris is breaking being held? 

At the Place de la Concorde, the largest public square in Paris, which is also hosting BMX freestyle, skateboarding, and 3x3 hoops. Call it the urban-sports venue. Or where the cool kids hang out. 

How is Olympic breaking scored?

Unlike many Olympic sports—equestrian, modern pentathlon, gymnastics with its impenetrable point system—breaking is pretty easy to follow! On both the men’s side, 16 breakers from all over the world face off in a one-day tournament; with the addition of Manizah Talash, of the Refugee Olympic Team, to the competition, there will be 17 breakers on the women's side. The event kicks off with a round-robin. The competitors are broken up into groups, and each breaker battles the other dancers in their pool. The two best breakers in each pool advance to the quarterfinals.

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In the quarterfinals, the knockout phase begins. Competitors face each other head-to-head, in a best-of-three rounds format. Each breaker alternates spinning, flipping, and shuffling their feet for around 30 to 50 seconds in a round. A panel of nine judges—an odd number to break any ties—decides who wins each round, basing their decisions on a combination of five equally weighted factors. The first is technique, which includes athleticism and body control. The second is vocabulary, or the variety of a dancer’s moves. Third is execution, in which the higher-scoring competitor, according to the World DanceSport Federation rulebook, “demonstrates a greater ability to perform their moves distinctly and to a high degree of cleanliness, minimizing slips, falls, or crashes.” Then there’s musicality, for which the judges are eyeing rhythms and movements synchronized to the music, and finally, originality, or spontaneity, personality, and innovation. 

Whoever dances better, in the eyes of the majority of the judges, wins the round. The best-of-three-round battles continue through the gold-medal match, which will take place a little after 3:20 p.m. E.T. on August 9 (B-girls) and August 10 (B-boys).

What are some breaking terms to know? 

A brief primer on the lingo: top rock is the foot-shuffling and arm-moving a breaker does while standing up. Down rock is the action on the floor. Watch for freezes—when dancers pause in the middle of a routine, often in a difficult position, like on her head or hands. 

Power moves are important. I asked Montalvo to define a power move. He got up out of his seat, did a little top rock, then spun his body on his hands and froze upside down, his triceps bulging. In other words, it’s a maneuver that requires impressive strength. 

Breakers use hand gestures to get under their opponent’s skin. If a B-girl starts slapping the floor, she thinks her opponent is crashing, or screwing up. If a B-boy positions both arms across his body parallel to one another, and moves them up and down—as if they’re top and bottom teeth chomping on a steak—he thinks his opponent is biting, or copying moves. If breakers point to their ears during a battle, they’re saying an opponent is dancing off-key (not listening to the music). 

The smoking gesture is pretty self-explanatory. “That means,” says Montalvo, “I smoked you.”

Do the breakers pick their own music, like ice dancers?

No! The DJ selects the music for a round.

Who are the breakers to watch? 

On the B-girl side, Choi clinched her spot in the Olympics by winning the Pan American Games in Chile in November. A graduate of Penn, Choi, 35, gave up her corporate career at Estée Lauder, where she held a six-figure executive position, to pursue Olympic breaking. Logan "Logistx" Edra, 21, is the other American qualifier. Dominika Banevič, of Lithuania, won the World Breaking Championship in September in Belgium: at 16, B-girl Nicka was the youngest competitor in the field (she’s now 17, and qualified for Paris). Fatima Zahra Elmamouny of Morocco, became the first African woman to qualify for Olympics breaking when she won her continental championship a year ago. "I fought a lot in my early days because people had this idea that breaking was for boys only,” she told the Royal Moroccan Federation of Aerobics, Fitness, Hip Hop and Related Sports.“I wanted to prove them wrong so I hung on."

For the B-boys, Montalvo is a threat: he won the 2022 Red Bull BC One event, a major international competition, in New York City, and took first place in the World Breaking Championship a year ago. (B-boy Jeffro,—Houston's Jeffrey Louis—nabbed the second American spot at the Games). Montalvo’s dad and twin brother learned breaking in Mexico and taught it to Montalvo and his cousin after they immigrated to Kissimmee, Fla., where Montalvo grew up. Montalvo first started breaking when he was 6. But his dad was also in a death-metal group, so Montalvo had to make a choice. “It was either death metal ... because I was around that world,” says Montalvo. “Or it was breaking. I chose breaking.” B-boy Victor was born.

Montalvo lists B-boy Shigekix, from Japan, as one of his main competitors for gold. “He’s like a little Terminator,” says B-boy Victor. “He just doesn't stop, just keeps on going. You're like, ‘Man, I hope this guy crashes.’ But it just doesn't happen.” Phil Wizard, from Canada, is another rival. “When we battle, it’s like he wins, I win, he wins, I win,” says Montalvo. “So it's supercool because we keep on leveling each other up.” 

This all sounds great! So where will breaking take place at the Los Angeles Olympics in ‘28? 

Surprisingly, breaking is not on the Olympic program for Los Angeles, even though Southern California developed its own robust breaking scene as it took off in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Some breakers point fingers at the World DanceSport Federation, the sport’s governing body for the Games, accusing it of failing to promote the sport. Others blame a powerful American institution: the NFL, which has thrown its weight behind flag football, which took a spot on the program for L.A.

But if breaking is a big success in Paris—and it might be, given the fun stage names, historic locale, and action on the dance floor—it could make a comeback in 2032, in Brisbane. Start top-rocking now to qualify.