Olympics to bring breakdancing & equal participation to Paris 2024
December 11, 2020
Gender equality and youth will take center stage at the Paris 2024 Olympics Games. This week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) annouced its approved event program and athlete quotas aimed at engaging younger audiences, being more flexible and better alignment with the reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020.
Breakdancing received Olympic status for Paris and skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing will make their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games opening on July 23, 2021. The IOC stressed its future priorities for Paris, and beyond to the 2028 Los Angeles Games, by claiming it will hit a long-term target of equal participation by men and women athletes and more urbanized events.
“With this programme, we are making the Olympic Games Paris 2024 fit for the post-corona world. We are further reducing the cost and complexity of hosting the Games. While 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. There is also a strong focus on youth,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.
Tokyo 2020 will be the first gender equal Olympic Games, with an overall 48.8% female participation, which will be further increased at Paris 2024, reaching the exact same number of male and female athletes for the first time in Olympic history.
The 10,500-athlete quota set for Paris 2024, including new sports, will lead to an overall reduction in the number of athletes – 592 fewer compared to Tokyo 2020 (11,092). It will also lead to a reduction in the number of officials, and therefore in the overall size and complexity of the Games. The IOC said the addition of the new sports is an expansion of the urban sports concept, “showcasing youth-focused events, which are inclusive, engaging and can be practiced outside conventional arenas.”
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 organizers 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 prestigious downtown venue, joining sport climbing and 3-on-3 basketball at Place de le Concorde.
Surfing will be held more than 15,000 kilometers (9,000 miles) away in the Pacific Ocean off the beaches of Tahiti, as the IOC already agreed in March.
Among the 28 established Summer Games sports, a total of 41 additional events were proposed this week. Two extreme canoe slalom events will replace canoe sprint events, and the men's 50-kilometer race walk will be replaced by a mixed gender team event.
The Olympic programme was developed in consultation with the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, International Federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and athletes, and finalised by the IOC Executive Board upon the recommendations of the Olympic Programme Commission.
As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IOC and Paris 2024 have committed to reducing the cost and complexity of the Olympic Games.