With head spins, windmills, and athletic airfares on show at Place de la Concorde during Breaking’s Olympic debut, one question is bound to come up: How is a winner chosen in dance competitions that fall under this category?
Questions like this apply to all sports that prioritize artistry and are subject to subjective evaluation. The greatest reward in breaking, though, was the rapid response from peers and the crowd; very few sports have origins as battle-centric as breaking (never called “break dancing,” a word despised by its pioneers and practitioners).
A panel of nine judges from across the world will judge the 16 B-girls who participate on August 9 and the 16 B-boys who compete on August 10. In other words, how will these judges decide which breakers will receive medals?
How is it going to function?
Similar to the competitions that took place in parks and gatherings when breaking initially surfaced in the Bronx in the 1970s, breakers will engage in head-to-head matches.
The music will be a surprise to the competitors as they are split into four groups for the first round-robin stage. The breakers will attempt to time their actions to the beat of the music that a DJ will be spinning.
Every fight will comprise three “throwdowns,” or rounds, in which breakers will alternately perform for one minute each. The player who wins the best-of-three rounds as the breaker advances.
Eight victors, two from each group, advance to the quarterfinal or knockout phase. Based on their results in the first round, the players will be placed in a bracket. Up to the last four and the gold medal match, the top-ranked breaker will square off against the top-ranked breaker, No. 2 against No. 7, and so on.
What is the structure for scoring?
The five criteria that the judges will use to grade breakers are language, technique, execution, originality, and musicality.
In ciphers, breakers engage in informal combat, and the audience’s clapping determines the winner right away. In a similar vein, viewers of the Olympic tournament won’t have to wait to find out who is leading. Judges will represent each scoring criterion with computerized sliders, which resemble a DJ’s mixing board faders. They will move the slider in the direction of the breaker that, in their opinion, is leading in, say, inventiveness at that particular moment. Crash-related incidents, wipeouts, and falls will result in penalties.
Additionally, breaking will be the only Olympic event featuring a “misbehavior button.” Fundamentally, breaking is an effort to outdo the other person. Judges may, however, hit any one of three misbehavior buttons if a competitive act goes too far. The athlete’s overall score may be lowered by up to 10% depending on how serious the transgression was.
Who made it?
The World DanceSport Federation is in charge of breaking into Paris and introducing the sport to the Olympics. Disco and Caribbean dances are among the styles governed by this organization. It tried to get ballroom dance into the Olympics almost thirty years ago.
Concerns about the art form being taken were highlighted by the fact that the federation has no relation to the origins of breaking. More than 2,000 people accused the WDSF of using breaking as a Trojan horse to get into the Olympics in a 2017 online petition titled “Get the WDSF’s Hands Off Hip-Hop.”
But when it came to organizing the trip to Paris, the organization worked with breakers. Zack Slusser (B-boy Cracker Zacks, a founding member of the Pro Breaking Tour) and Zahra Hamani (B-girl Jeskilz, a member of the Rock Steady Crew) are members of the DanceSport Breaking Committee, the official branch of U.S.A. Breakers.
Beta Langebeck, a B-girl who has judged Red Bull’s breaking events, says that while the dancers come from different backgrounds, they strive for justice by embracing multiple viewpoints and styles. “The advantage is that they can choose judges with different styles to maintain fairness.”
Who will triumph?
Menno van Gorp, also known as B-boy Menno, and Lee-Lou Demierre of the Netherlands, as well as Shigeyuki Nakarai of Japan, are among the medal hopefuls among the men. Victor Montalvo, also known as B-boy Victor, is the first American to qualify for the Olympics and a two-time Red Bull BC One World Champion.
Women’s leading candidates include Logan Edra (B-girl Logistx) of the United States; Ami Yuasa and Ayumi Fukushima of Japan; Sya Dembele (B-girl Syssy) of France; and 17-year-old Lithuanian B-girl Dominika Banevic.
