The iconic Place de la Concorde, in the heart of Paris, will host break dancing, the new Olympic discipline. Also known as ‘breaking’, ‘b-boying’ or ‘b-girling’, break dancing is the only new sport at the Olympics which will be held in the French capital from 26 July to 11 August. Surfing (will take place in Tahiti) and skateboarding have been confirmed, while for sport climbing there will be a restyling of the previous format proposed at the Tokyo edition. The International Olympic Committee, with the inclusion of modern sports, wants to increasingly bring and encourage young people to engage in sporting activity. Break dancing will be the big news of the Games. It is a type of urban dance characterized by rapid and jerky movements that offer emotions with spectacular evolutions.
The origins of the break, an integral part of hip hop culture, date back to the 70s, precisely in the Bronx neighborhood of New York. In Paris there will be 32 athletes competing, 16 women and 16 men who will fight for medals to music set by a disc jockey. The five-circle event is scheduled for August 9 and 10. Break dancing, like sport climbing, was included in the program of the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
Sports climbing, which debuted three years ago in Tokyo, will be offered with a new format that allows the medals to be doubled. There are two competitions, the speed one and the combined bouldering and lead competition. At the Paris Games the competition venue will be the Parc Sportif et Scolaire du Bourget (5-10 August). A growing sport practiced by young people is surfing, whose origins date back to a hundred years ago in Hawaii. The Olympic venue will be in Tahiti in French Polynesia, 15,700 kilometers from Paris, over 22 hours by plane. The races will be held in the village of Teahupo’o from July 27 to 29. Another very popular sport among young people is skateboarding. Born along the Californian coast and designed for surfers to be able to keep fit even in the absence of waves, in Paris it offers two specialties, street and park which will be held on Place de la Concorde on 27 and 28 July respectively and on 6 and 7 August.