PARIS — Breaking — no, it’s not called breakdancing — is making its Olympic debut here at the 2024 Paris Games. The competition opens with the B-girls, and medals will be decided by the end of the day today. The B-boys will then close it out on Saturday.
USA TODAY Sports is bringing you everything you need to know, live updates and highlights as the competition unfolds. Follow along.
Breaking at the Olympics: What’s the format?
It’s a bit confusing — and completely new in the world of breaking. Rather than a straight-up bracket of one-on-one battles, the preliminary round will be round-robin style: Four groups of four breakers, with each one going two rounds against the other three in their group. From there, the top two B-girls in each group — as determined by who won the most rounds — will advance to the quarterfinals. The quarters, semis and finals will all be three rounds in a traditional bracket style.
Is breakdancing an Olympic sport?
Yes. Breaking is part of the new wave of sports that the International Olympic Committee has ushered in as part of a broader effort to appeal to younger fans and add an urban flair to the Summer Games. It follows the addition of sports such as skateboarding and surfing, which debuted at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
How is breaking scored?
Competitors will be judged on five categories: Technique, execution, musicality, originality and vocabulary. The scoring is fairly subjective, with each judge simply voting for the B-boy or B-girl who they think performed best in each category. There is no numerical scoring system like you might see in figure skating or gymnastics.
Vocabulary is one criteria to keep an eye on as the competition progresses. The judges want to see breakers display a variety of moves and styles across rounds. If they’re doing the same stuff in the final battle that they did in the first battle, they would theoretically be dinged for that.
USA breakers at Olympics
Victor Montalvo, who competes as B-boy Victor, qualified for Paris by winning the 2023 world championships in Belgium. He’s been competing for more than a decade and is widely considered to be one of the top competitive breakers in the world. B-boy Jeffro will be the other American man in the field after he nabbed a late qualifying spot.
Sunny Choi (or B-girl Sunny) and Logan Edra (or B-girl Logistx) will represent Team USA on the women’s side. Choi won the 2023 Pan American Games, while Edra has had past success in Red Bull’s international breaking competition, BC One.
How to watch breaking at the Olympics
The breaking competitions at the 2024 Paris Games will all be televised live on E!, with the women’s competition slated to begin at 10:30 a.m. ET on Friday and conclude with the finals, which start at 2 p.m. ET. The men’s competition will take place at the same times Saturday.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Olympic breaking live updates: Rules, how it works, who to watch
