Breakdancing gets Olympic status, Paris debut in 2024

LAUSANNE:

The International Olympic Committee's pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program at the 2024 Paris Games.

Also confirmed for Paris by the IOC executive board were skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing. Those three sports will make their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games which were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic by one year to open on July 23, 2021.

However, Paris organisers need time to prepare their project, and so the IOC kept to its long-time schedule to confirm the 2024 sports lineup this month even before some are tested in Tokyo.

Breakdancing will be called breaking at the Olympics, as it was in the 1970s by hip-hop pioneers in the United States. It was proposed by Paris organisers almost two years ago after positive trials at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.

Breaking passed further stages of approval in 2019 from separate decisions by the IOC board and full membership. In Paris, breaking has been given a prestige downtown venue, joining sport climbing and 3-on-3 basketball at Place de le Concorde.

Surfing will be held far from France - more than 15,000 kilometres (9,000 miles) away in the Pacific Ocean - at the beaches of Tahiti, as the IOC already agreed in March. (PTI)

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