Breaking is not bad – the B-girls face-off and delight the Paris crowds

From The Bronx to La Concorde, via the back-alleys of Kabul and the banlieues that ring Paris like a vinyl record, breakdancing touched down on the global stage on Friday, bringing top-rocks, freezes and down-lows into the Olympic lexicon for the first time.

In the same square where Marie Antoinette was sent to the guillotine two-and-a-quarter centuries ago, the world’s top 32 B-girls executed their moves in a series of face-offs against a backdrop of tracks curated by the competition’s resident DJs, Plash One and Fleg.

Among the history-makers were 671, a Chinese teenager understood to be the first Olympic athlete without a letter to her name, and Talash, representing the Refugee Team, who fled Afghanistan with her 12-year-old brother when the Taliban’s arrival forced her breakdancing club to close.

Snoop Dogg officially opened the competition to the sound of his classic Drop It Like It’s Hot. Almost five hours later, Ami, from Saitama in Japan, beat Nicka of Lithuania to be crowned the sport’s first – and possibly only – Olympic B-girl champion.

A panel of nine judges – almost certainly the first officials in Olympic history to enter their seats via a group performance of the activity on which they were about to adjudicate – scored each breaker based on six criteria: technique, vocabulary (variety of moves), execution, performativity, musicality and originality.

“I’m super-happy to be here, and I’m proud to be the first one,” said India, the 2022 world champion. “It means a lot. It is the first time that breaking has been on such a high platform – it’s the biggest showcase in the world.”

Also in the opening phase, the crowd warmed to local favourite Ssey, a 17-year-old who caused a minor beef with her Australian opponent Raygun by beginning her series of acrobatic downrocks before her rival had properly concluded her routine.

Dismissive hand gestures and in-your-face moves were all part of the spectacle, although all the breakers embraced afterwards, in keeping with the spirit of seizing the chance to put their sport on show. It could be their only chance – breaking is not currently on the programme for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“I’m super excited to be a part of bringing breaking to the world,” she said. “It is such a phenomenal atmosphere, and a privilege to get this opportunity.

“All my moves are original. Creativity is really important to me. Sometimes it speaks to the judges, and sometimes it doesn’t. I do my thing, and it represents art. That is what it is all about.”