Whatever the International Olympic Committee’s motivations, Sunny Choi and Jeffrey Louis appreciate the platform. “To me, it’s an opportunity that we wouldn’t have had otherwise, to share what we do with the world,” Choi said recently. “I can speculate.
And it wasn’t money, because breakers don’t have a lot of that. But I’m very grateful.” Advertisement Choi and Louis; aka, “B-Girl Sunny” and “B-Boy Jeffro,” are two members of the United States’ four-person inaugural breaking team , a competition making its Olympic debut this week at the Paris Games.
And the hope for those who have pushed for breaking to be included in the Olympics is that its appearance this week makes a lasting impression. It will not be on the menu for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, though there is hope breaking can return for the 2032 Summer Games in Brisbane, Australia. Both the men’s and women’s fields in Paris are pretty open.
U.S. breaker Victor Montalvo, aka B-Boy Victor, is one of the favorites to win gold on the men’s side, along with Canada’s Philip Kim (“B-Boy Phil Wizard”), the Netherlands’ Lee-Lou Demierre (“B-Boy Lou”), Japan’s Shigeyuki Nakarai (“B-Boy Shigekix”), Kazakhstan’s Amir Zakirov (“B-Boy Amir”) and South Korea’s Kim Hong-Yul (“B-Boy Hongten”).
On the women’s side, Japan’s Ami Yuasa (“B-Girl Ami”), China’s Liu Qingyi (“B-Girl 671”), Lithuania’s Dominika Banevič (“B-Girl Nicka”), Japan’s 4.