Breaking (or breakdancing) made its debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and it’s caused quite a stir across social media.
The competition kicked off on Friday with an introduction from the Olympics icon himself, Snoop Dogg. Then B-girls from around the world were the first to take to the international dance floor to show off their moves, as the men’s competition will be held on Saturday, Aug. 10.
While there’s been a lot of anticipation surrounding the event and the sports recognition, which has deep ties to hip-hop, it appears some viewers didn’t know what to expect. However, the reactions have not been disappointing, resulting in plenty of viral memes, hilarious commentary and a few standout dancers including Team Australia’s Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun.
Ahead of the first day of competition, actor-rapper Ice-T was among those who took to social media to share their excitement. “Olympic BreakDancing starts Today! 10am Eastern Time… This is gonna blow the minds of people that haven’t seen breaking in a while… INCREDIBLE All Respect to HIPHOP,” he wrote.
Team USA is being represented by Victor Montalvo, Sunny Choi, Logan Edra and Jeffrey Louis. But it was Gunn who stole the show online, notably for her performance against Edra, Lithuania’s Dominika Banevič and France’s Sya Dembélé.
Videos of some of her dance moves quickly made their way around social media. Sports commentator Pat McAfee even got in on the conversation, saying, “We’ve all been kind of intrigued by this Breaking being an Olympic sport because we believe this potentially sets a precedent for other artistic forms.” He added after seeing a video of Gunn, “Maybe my new favorite sport. I did not know there was going to be a fish flop as one of the moves, fish on the boat flop. … Congrats on being an Olympian.”
Comedian-actor Roy Wood Jr. also pointed out on X, formerly Twitter, that some videos of Gunn have been removed from the platform (though the reason wasn’t immediately clear). “That breakdancer called Twitter on y’all,” he wrote.
Before the competition day, Gunn, who is also a university lecturer, told CNBC that she pushed herself “harder than ever” to qualify for the Paris Games.
“In breaking, you just never know what’s going to happen on the day. You always have to be prepared. I knew the stakes were higher for the Olympic qualifiers, and prepared 10 different sets and made sure I included all the elements and moves in the rounds,” she said. “I really, really, wanted it, and so I fought really hard throughout the competition and just put everything out there.”
Ultimately, Japan’s Ami Yuasa took home the gold medal for the B-girls competition, while Banevič scored silver and China’s Liu Qingyi earned bronze.
