Breakdancing added to Paris 2024 Olympics

  • Video report by ITV News Correspondent Damon Green

Breakdancing is to make its Olympic debut at the 2024 games in Paris, the International Olympic Committee has announced.

The sport, referred to as 'breaking', is confirmed as part of the event programme along with skateboarding, climbing and surfing, which will be retained after debuting at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

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.

The term breaking was originally used to refer to breakdancing by the hip-hop pioneers of the dance.

Surfing will be held more than 9,000 miles away in the Pacific Ocean off the beaches of Tahiti, as the IOC already agreed in March.

The Tokyo 2020 games are taking place in 2021 after they were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The IOC also said the Paris programme will see exactly 50% male and female participation, following 48.8% female participation in Tokyo.

There will be 329 medal events in Paris, 10 fewer than in Tokyo, including four lost from weightlifting, and the athlete quota in 2024 of 10,500 is around 600 less than next year.

Two sports with troubled governing bodies — boxing and weightlifting — saw the biggest cuts to the number of athletes they can have in Paris.

Weightlifting should have 120 athletes in Paris, which is less than half of its total at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

Breaking will be the only new sport at the 2024 Olympics Credit: AP

The sport could be dropped entirely due to its historic doping problems and IOC concerns over the pace and depth of reform at the International Weightlifting Federation.

IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement: "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."