Breaking (or breakdancing) made its debut on the 2024 Paris Olympics, and it’s triggered fairly a stir throughout social media.
The competitors kicked off on Friday with an introduction from the Olympics icon himself, Snoop Dogg. Then B-girls from around the globe had been the primary to take to the worldwide dance flooring to point out off their strikes, as the lads’s competitors might be held on Saturday, Aug. 10.
Whereas there’s been lots of anticipation surrounding the occasion and the sports activities recognition, which has deep ties to hip-hop, it seems some viewers didn’t know what to anticipate. Nevertheless, the reactions haven’t been disappointing, leading to loads of viral memes, hilarious commentary and some standout dancers together with Group Australia’s Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun.
Forward of the primary day of competitors, actor-rapper Ice-T was amongst those that took to social media to share their pleasure. “Olympic BreakDancing starts Today! 10am Eastern Time… This is gonna blow the minds of people that haven’t seen breaking in a while… INCREDIBLE All Respect to HIPHOP,” he wrote.
Group USA is being represented by Victor Montalvo, Sunny Choi, Logan Edra and Jeffrey Louis. However it was Gunn who stole the present on-line, notably for her efficiency towards Edra, Lithuania’s Dominika Banevič and France’s Sya Dembélé.
Movies of a few of her dance strikes shortly made their manner round social media. Sports activities commentator Pat McAfee even obtained in on the dialog, saying, “We’ve all been kind of intrigued by this Breaking being an Olympic sport because we believe this potentially sets a precedent for other artistic forms.” He added after seeing a video of Gunn, “Maybe my new favorite sport. I did not know there was going to be a fish flop as one of the moves, fish on the boat flop. … Congrats on being an Olympian.”
Comic-actor Roy Wooden Jr. additionally identified on X, previously Twitter, that some movies of Gunn have been faraway from the platform (although the rationale wasn’t instantly clear). “That breakdancer called Twitter on y’all,” he wrote.
Earlier than the competitors day, Gunn, who can be a college lecturer, instructed CNBC that she pushed herself “harder than ever” to qualify for the Paris Video games.
“In breaking, you just never know what’s going to happen on the day. You always have to be prepared. I knew the stakes were higher for the Olympic qualifiers, and prepared 10 different sets and made sure I included all the elements and moves in the rounds,” she mentioned. “I really, really, wanted it, and so I fought really hard throughout the competition and just put everything out there.”
Finally, Japan’s Ami Yuasa took residence the gold medal for the B-girls competitors, whereas Banevič scored silver and China’s Liu Qingyi earned bronze.
