The International Olympic Committee is trying to welcome a younger audience to its upcoming season of games and their first move of business is to add breakdancing to the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. According to The Washington Post, the board met in Switzerland earlier this week and highly recommended the inclusion of not only breakdancing but skateboarding, sports climbing and surfing.
"They contribute to make the program of the Games more gender-balanced, more youthful and more urban,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “These four sports also offer the opportunity to connect with the young generation there.”
According to the publication, the OIC will monitor the sports throughout 2020 “to see how they perform, to see how they manage their sport, to look at the governance, to look at the integrity of their competitions, to look at the referring and judging system and so on.”
Recognizing breakdancing as an Olympic sport has been years in the making. Currently, Red Bull holds the biggest competition in the world annually called the Reb Bull BC One.
“In order to get people to sport, we have to go where people are,” Thomas added. “If they are spectators at the sport event or if they’re in the city, then we have to benefit from this opportunity to engage them with sport — to motivate them, not to watch only sport but to practice sport.”
