Geneva: Breakdancing has been added as an Olympic sport for the 2024 games being held in Paris. The decision was taken by International Olympic Committee on Monday, as it seeks to attract a younger audience to the historic competition.
Other newly added sports include skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing, all of which will debut at the delayed Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, as per a report in ESPN.
Tokyo Games were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic by one year to open on July 23, 2021.
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 organisers 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 prestige downtown venue, joining sport climbing and 3-on-3 basketball at Place de le Concorde.
Surfing will be held more than 15,000 km (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 to Monday’s meeting.
The IOC said “limiting the overall number of events is a key element in curbing the growth of the Olympic program as well as additional costs.”
