Breakdancing to feature as medal event in 2024 Olympics. Seriously.
Breakdancing cleared its final hurdle to feature in the Olympics on Monday, bringing the wholly original, electric art form to sport’s biggest stage.
The International Olympic Committeeās pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience and refresh its sports program to remain relevant saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program for Paris 2024.
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.
Paris Games organisers have said they want to deliver a program that is in keeping with the times and will attract a new and younger audience.
Breakdancing will be called breaking at the Olympics, as it was in the 1970s by hip-hop pioneers in the United States, and has been given a prestige downtown venue, joining sport climbing and 3-on-3 basketball at Place de le Concorde.
Surfing will be held more than 15000km away in the Pacific Ocean off the beaches of Tahiti, as the IOC already agreed in March.
Under new IOC rules first introduced for the Tokyo Games, Olympic host cities can hand-pick sports and propose them for inclusion in those Games if they are popular in that country and add to the appeal.
The IOC trimmed the overall events for Paris by 10 to 329 compared to the Tokyo Games next year to reduce costs while increasing mixed-gender events from 18 in Tokyo to 22 in four years time.
āWith this program, we are making the Olympic Games Paris 2024 fit for the post-corona worldā¦ā IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement.
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āThere is also a strong focus on youth,ā he added.
The IOC also capped the total athlete quota to exactly 10,500.
The recent summer Olympics had registered an increase to more than 11,000.
There will also be exactly 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women athletes in Paris, up from 48.8 per cent women in Tokyo.
āWhile we will achieve gender equality already at the upcoming Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, we will see for the first time in Olympic history the participation of the exact same number of female athletes as male athletes,ā Bach said.
Squash legend Michelle Martin says the Olympic Games have become a āmockeryā after breakdancing was added to the program for Paris 2024.
Australiaās three-time world championās immediate reaction to learning squash had been overlooked yet again, this time in favour of breakdancing was āoh my godā.
āYou just look at the whole thing and you just go āwhereās the Olympics going?ā I know some people say breakdancingās a sport but ā¦ I donāt understand,ā Martin told AAP on Tuesday.
āThe Olympics was all about a score, or it was a running race.
āThere was a definitive answer and results to sports.
āYou bring in all these judging things and it just gets so corrupt and so out of control.
āI just donāt get it anymore.ā
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Squash has been lobbying hard, unsuccessfully, for decades to be included at the Olympics.
But not even support from tennis superstar Roger Federer has been able to give squash a look-in.
Before breakdancing, officially named ābreakingā beat it, squash has lost out to sports including skate boarding, sport climbing, BMX, surfing, golf and even wushu, which was trialled in Beijing in 2008.
As heartbroken as she is, Martin ā who also won six British Opens, the Wimbledon of squash ā is no longer surprised.
āAfter the last ones, you get to the point where itās almost expected,ā the former long-time world No.1 said.
āWhy? I donāt know because the amount of effort squash players put in.
āI know what it was like, training for the sport. Itās one of the hardest sports to train for and play.
āTheyāve obviously got something against squash, because itās been rejected in the past, it just keeps getting overlooked.
āI donāt know, I donāt know what to say.ā
The 53-year-old has lost all hope of squash ever gaining Olympic status, especially when the IOC has opted for breakdancing on this occasion.
āItās sort of making a mockery of what the Olympics is,ā Martin said.
āWhen you look at what it all used to stand for, the Olympics, it definitely fits in the category.
āWhat does the Olympics stands for these days, I donāt really know.
āThey either need to go back to what the Olympics was about and let the other sports stay outside of that because the problem is itās having such an impact on the sports that donāt get into the Olympics now.
āThe Olympics has lost what it was.
āYes theyāre trying to move with the times but itās creating a mockery of the thing.ā
-AAP
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