Dance shined in the global spotlight like never before this past weekend as breaking long awaited debut on the Olympic stage. In a packed amphitheater-style arena on Paris’ Place de la Concorde, 32 dancers from around the world – 16 b-boys and 16 b-girls – competed against each other to see who would go down in history as the first Olympic smashing champions . Here are the highlights from packed race days on Friday and Saturday.
The setting:
Even watching from home, the excitement and energy of the Place de la Concorde felt electrifying. Thousands of spectators, many of them breakers themselves, filled the stands, going wild in their seats and cheering on the competitors.
Music is the backbone of any good fight, and on that front the Olympics delivered. Two renowned disc jockeys in the smash scene – DJ Fleg from New York and DJ Plash from Poland – were on the decks scratching and spinning iconic tracks from James Brown, Busta Rhymes and A Tribe Called Quest. Emcees, another important element of hip-hop culture, rose to the challenge as well. France’s Malik Moujuy (“Malek”) and Portugal’s Max Oliveira kept the crowd and competitor energy high over the two 10-hour race days.
Although one of NBC’s spokespeople, Blythe Lawrence, was an outsider to the wrestling world (gymnastics, to be exact), most of the comments came from insiders. breakers Candy Blows, Ronnie Abaldonado and David “David Kid” Schreibman. While those familiar with breaking might have appreciated a little more nuance in their delivery, overall they did a great job explaining the basics of the sport and paying homage to its hip-hop roots.
Scoring:
Much of the controversy surrounding breaking as an Olympic sport concerns scoring. Organizers were tasked with developing a system that would work in Olympic competition while honoring the history of freestyle breaking.
The games: ultimately had nine judges use a DJ fader to score each breaker against their opponent for technique, vocabulary, performance, musicality and originality. Despite all the uncertainty, the system seemed to work well; there were no disputes over the results of any round. It was refreshing to see that the judges – respected breakers from around the world – valued the fundamentals and quality of execution as much as the flashy tricks. While French veteran breaker Danny Dan, for example, didn’t necessarily match the physique of Australian newcomer J. Attack, Dan ended up winning all the judges’ votes in both rounds with his combination of musicality and personality.
The contestants:
Although breaking was born in the Bronx, Team USA: did not perform at its best in these games. By the end of 24 round battles, both US b-girls, Sunny Choi and Logan “Logistx” Edra, had been knocked out of the competition. Jeffrey “Jeffro” Louis and Victor Montalvo were able to advance to the semifinals, with Montalvo making it to the bronze medal match where he won a decisive victory against Japan’s Shigeyuki “Shigekix” Nakarai.
By Sunday night, Canada’s Phillip “Phil Wizard” Kim and Japan’s Ami Yuasa were crowned Olympic b-boy and b-girl champions, respectively. (You can find the full list of winners here.) Although only a few breakers made it to the final podium, there were many beautiful moments of sportsmanship among the competitors, demonstrating how close-knit and supportive the breaker community around the world is.