The Surprise of the Olympics: Breakers’ Delight

By the time the B-girl finals wrapped up on Friday, the newly introduced Olympic event of breaking had passed a test. It was not awful. It was not just a litany of power moves. It was funny. It was sweet. Musicality mattered. By the end, I was completely invested.

In the B-girl competition, Ami (Ami Yuasa from Japan) slipped past Nicka (Dominika Banevic from Lithuania) in the gold medal battle. The B-boy competition was on Saturday, with the gold going to B-boy Phil Wizard (Phillip Kim of Canada).

But I didn’t really care who won. Breaking is dance. And you can’t give it a score.

Breaking was invented by Black and brown kids, mostly male, in the Bronx in the 1970s. That it made Olympic history by opening with B-girls was everything. The logic of introducing breaking as a new competitive event aside, these female competitors, with their B-girl spirit and ethos, pulled the Olympic Games into the global here and now.

Their cool hoodie glamour made some other athletes seem out of touch. Before the quarterfinals began — the breakers needed some recovery time — my television coverage dipped into rhythmic gymnastics. Those competitors, sequined and slathered with lipstick, were clearly stressed. The B-girl mood? More like “pinch me, I can’t stop smiling.”

The pieces of cardboard that were lugged to parks and parties to create a dance floor in the early days were replaced by a round stage with violet accents at Place de la Concorde. Off in the distance stood the Eiffel Tower. Breaking may have strayed far from its roots, in which marginalized communities found expression and meaning through dance. But the B-boys and B-girls at the Olympics showed there is still community and generosity in — or despite — competition, along with a unified quest for individual dance expression.