The world reacts to the incorporation of breakdancing, sport climbing and skateboarding into the Olympic Games in Paris 2024

Breakdancing is now an Olympic sport.

The strange announcement came as the IOC continued to usher in a new era for the Games with skating, surfing, and sport climbing also confirmed to return at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

All four sports received the green light when the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) met to confirm the Paris 2024 program.

Skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing have already joined the program for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which will take place in 2021 after being postponed for a year by the coronavirus pandemic.

The controversial inclusions were first put on the table at the 134th IOC meeting last year and were tentatively included in the 2024 program for Paris.

The inclusion of the four new sports has come at the expense of the weightlifting and boxing categories. Proposed additions to cross-country relay athletics and coastal rowing were also rejected.

The introduction of breakdancing, or break, as the sport is known, was “one of the outcomes of the 2020 Olympic Agenda,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.

“We had a clear priority to introduce sports (which are) particularly popular with the younger generation and given the urbanization of sport.”

While Bach was excited about the new direction of the Olympics, the announcement fell through with many sportscasters from around the world on Tuesday morning (AEDT).

American sports reporter David Woods seemed to reflect public opinion when he tweeted: “So no cross-country and yes breakdancing? The International Olympic Committee is an absolute disgrace to the sport.”

Canadian professor of evolutionary behavioral science, Gad Saad, also lamented the departure from traditional human movement sports.

“And then there will be a new sport at the 2028 Olympics. It’s a triathlon: breakdancing followed by fishing and then long jumps. There used to be a time when the 100-meter sprint was the archetype of an Olympic athlete. . an Olympian, “Saad wrote on Twitter.

British Paralympian Micky Yule asked on Twitter: “Is this a joke?”

British Olympic weightlifter Gareth Evans also called the decision “embarrassing” in a Twitter post.

Many other commenters were more concerned with the inclusion of the new sports, while sports such as netball and softball were not considered.

Breakdancing, which grew alongside hip hop in New York’s South Bronx in the 1970s and is officially known in sporting terms as break, appeared at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, in the form of “battles ” face to face. .

Sergei Chernyshev of Russia, who competes under the nickname Bumblebee, won the first boys ‘gold medal at that event, while Ramu Kawai of Japan won the girls’ title.

“Today is a historic occasion not just for b-boys and b-girls, but for all dancers in the world,” said Shawn Tay, president of the World Dance Sports Federation (WDSF).

“The WDSF could not be more proud to have the breakout included in Paris 2024 … It was a true team effort to get to this point and we will redouble our efforts in the lead up to the Olympics to ensure that the breakout competition in Paris 2024 will be unforgettable. “

Sports federations that already have Olympic status were disappointed in their attempt to increase events within their sports, as IOC President Thomas Bach said that none of the 41 proposed events would be included in Paris.

While some sports substituted at some events within their existing event numbers, Bach said medal events had actually dropped from 339 to 329.

He said the quota for athletes for Paris had been set at 10,500, including those participating in the four new sports.

That represents a 600 decrease from the Tokyo Games, while gender equality would be achieved for the first time in Olympic history in Paris.

The issue of gender equality led to the demise of the men’s 50 km march, which first appeared at the 1932 Olympics.

IOC sporting director Kit McConnell said the event would be replaced by a “mixed gender event.”

There was a decision to “achieve gender equality by eliminating the 50km run for men,” rather than introducing a version for women, McConnell said, adding that the 20km races for men and women would remain.

However, the replacement event will not be a mixed cross-country, so World Athletics has been pushing hard.

“The event had to fit into an existing Olympic venue,” McConnell said, explaining that a possible retrofit of the riding or mountain bike venues to accommodate a cross country was “too expensive and complex.”