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Olympic Breaking 2024: Where to Watch, Full Schedule
Breaking will make is Olympic debut at Paris 2024, and Team USA's roster is aiming for gold stacked with world champions.
Step into the dynamic world of breaking at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where gravity-defying moves and raw street style dance will transform the Games.
Breaking, also known as breakdancing, originated in the Bronx during the 1970s. Evolved from a grassroots moment into a global phenomenon, the journey to the Olympics began with its inclusion in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, where it gained widespread acclaim. Now it's being recognized as an Olympic sport for the first time ever at Paris 2024.
Breaking consists of a few distinct categories of moves: top rock, down rock, and freeze, according to NBC Olympics. Top rock refers to the standing moves performed at the beginning of the routine and down rock, or footwork, involves movements performed close to the ground. Freeze is a movement where the dancer holds a challenging pose.
RELATED: Where To Watch 2024 Paris Olympics: Complete Schedule
The sport is judged based on five categories: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality. The breakers are judged by a panel of judges, then the highest scored breaker moves onto the next round. The dances last 60 seconds but have no penalty if the breaker goes over.
Read on to learn about the breakers hitting the stage at Paris 2024.
Key athletes to watch
Team USA is sending three breakers to the Olympics: Sunny Choi, Logan Edra, and Victor Montalvo.
From Queens, New York, Choi, 35, began breaking at the University of Pennsylvania, after falling in love with the sport through a club at the school. She competed in the World Championships in 2019, 2021, and 2022, per Team USA.
Edra is a star on Team USA, breaking since she was 7 years old. The 21-year-old has won the 2018 Silverback Open Championships, 2020 Junior Breaking 7ToSmoke Radikal Forze Jam and the 2021 Red Bull BC One World Final. From San Diego, California, Edra grew up inspired by local breakers throughout the city.
Montalvo, 30, joins the roster from Kissimmee, Florida. He’s the highest-ranked American male breaker in the world, according to Team USA. The breaker competed in the 2023 World Championships, scoring gold. A veteran to competitions, Montalvo is the 2022 and 2015 Red Bull BC One champion, and World Games 2022 champion.
Learn more about the athletes headed to the Games on NBC's Olympics website.
How to watch
Every day during the Summer Olympics, NBC will offer fans at least nine hours of daytime coverage of the Games’ most exciting events, including live finals coverage of swimming, gymnastics, track and field, and more. Considering the time difference (Paris is six hours ahead of the U.S.’s eastern time zone), fans will be able to watch the day’s most popular events live on NBC in the morning and afternoon. NBC will also deliver an enhanced Olympics primetime show each night, providing three hours of must-see entertainment.
In addition, every event from the Summer Olympics will be broadcast live on Peacock, which will be home to an innovative Olympics hub that will include "curated rails of live and upcoming events, dedicated in-depth hubs for nearly 40 sports, medal standings and an interactive schedule."
Complete schedule for breaking events
Friday, August 9
10:00 a.m. ET: Women’s Qualification
2:00 p.m. ET: Women’s Final
Saturday, August 10
10:00 a.m. ET: Men’s Qualification
2:00 p.m. ET: Men’s Final
