The highly anticipated Olympic debut of breakdancing has been decades in the making.
Before the sport finally unveils itself at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Friday, August 9, breakdance pioneer Tony “Mr. Wave” Wesley explained the historical significance of the moment exclusively to Us Weekly.
“Moving into the Olympics is enormous,” Wesley, a founding member of the legendary crew New York Breakers in the early 1980s, told Us while promoting his partnership with Quizlet. “When we started around 15 or 16 years old, we were the teachers. We were the historians that did not understand this would be historic, you know?”
The only new sport at this year’s Summer Games, breakdancing — or “breaking” as it’s officially called — is split up into groups of B-Boys and B-Girls.
B-Girls hit the floor first on Friday, with the entire tournament taking place in one day. B-Boys make their debut on Saturday, August 10, under the same circumstances.
Each day starts with a round-robin phase consisting of four groups of four. The top two in each group advance to the quarterfinals, followed by the semifinals and then the breaking final, where dancers will battle for medals. The entire competition is expected to last five hours.
“These kids get to see it on that platform and see these young kids getting medals,” Mr. Wave explained. “It takes them into a space where they can become team players, where they can have the education, where they can understand and forecast about how to put things together. It becomes attainable.”
During the competition, judges will score the breakers based on five categories: musicality, vocabulary, originality, technique and execution. Each category makes up an equal 20 percent of the score.
Battles are best-of-three rounds and each breaker has 60 seconds to complete a routine.
While breakdancing making it to the world’s stage is cause for celebration, Mr. Wave insisted this is just the tip of the iceberg.
“The Olympics is not the last day,” he said. “It’s just the beginning of opening up a large platform to gain and absorb.”
Mr. Wave’s passion for breaking has led to a collaboration with learning platform Quizlet and the creation of a series of virtual flashcard sets that highlight the cultural roots, music, style, fashion and dance moves within the sport.
“Quizlet was the perfect outlet and opportunity to touch the backend of how it started and how it all began,” Mr. Wave said. “We designed it to continue a path to correct history.”
The B-Girls competition starts Friday, August 9, at 10 a.m. ET with the gold medal battle scheduled for 3:23 p.m. ET. The B-Boys follow the same schedule on Saturday, August 10.