By Leigh O’Connor.
More commonly known as breakdancing, Breaking will make its Olympic debut on August 9-10 at Place de la Concorde where 32 male and female athletes will compete in the first round of competition.
Leading the Australian charge will be B-Boy Jeff ‘J Attack’ Dunne, while Dr Rachael Gunn competes as B-Girl Raygun.
Rachael is a born and bred Sydneysider who also works as a researcher and teacher, integrating her passion for dance into her profession; while Jeff was born in the Philippines before being adopted by an Australian family and now calls the NSW town of Casuarina home.
Photo credit: @photography.jny
Read on to get the lowdown on this new Olympic sport, plus two late-night snack recipes to sustain you through the action.
Breaking’s roots can be traced back to the Bronx in New York in the 1970s as part of hip-hop culture, characterised by a combination of athletic moves including spins, flips and other complex techniques. International competitions began in the 1990s.
The word ‘breaking’ refers to the instrumental breaks in music usually accompanied beats and the sport became recognised as an urban activity just like skateboarding and sport climbing, inspired by various dance styles demanding athleticism and co-ordination.
A breaking game or match is called a ‘battle’ and the athletes are referred to as B-Boys and B-Girls. Dancers face off in one-on-one battles navigated by a Master of Ceremonies to music randomly played by a DJ.
The 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires was the first Olympic event to showcase breaking and after such a rousing success, it joined the programme for Paris 2024 where it will be the only new sport.
Judges score the breakers based on five categories – musicality, vocabulary, originality, technique and execution – each category makes up 20% of the score. Battles are the best-of-three-rounds, also known as ‘throwdowns’ - each breaker has 60 seconds to complete a routine and they can be penalised for misbehaviour.
Who will win gold, I hear you say?
B-Boy Victor from the good ol’ USA is the reigning World Champion while B-Girl Nicka from Lithuania rules the women’s side of the draw. Other drawcards in the men’s event are Shigekix (Asian Champion), Phil Wizard (Pan American Champion) and Dany Dann (European Champion from France).
In the women’s side of the competition, there’s a good chance the winner will come from one of these three – Ami and Ayumi from Japan, who were one-two in the Olympic Qualifying Series and Asian Champion 671.
However, with the gruelling schedule and the Paris Summer heat, it really will likely come down to who performs best on the day.
All that activity requires some serious snacking action to keep up energy levels – try these two recipes by Maple from Canada to get you through the early hours of the morning.
Maple salted caramel lamingtons - a deliciously sweet take on the classic lamington cake, with the sponge sandwiched together with a maple salted caramel filling.
White chocolate, macadamia and maple blondies - delightfully soft and fluffy white chocolate blondies, naturally enriched with crushed macadamia, maple sugar and pure maple syrup.
