Breakdancing could be the newest Olympic ‘sport’ in 2024 Paris Games

Today's expression: To the untrained eye
March 4, 2019:

Organizers of the Paris Olympics in 2024 want breakdancing to be among the sports featured in the City of Lights. If selected, it would join skateboarding, climbing, and surfing among the newer Olympic "sports" aimed at appealing to a younger generation. Breakdancing is the most popular type of hip-hop dance and originated in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Plus, learn the English expression "to the untrained eye."

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Breakdancing could be the next Olympic sport if the organizers in Paris get their way

Welcome back to Plain English for Monday, March 4, 2019. This is episode 134 and you can find a transcript of this episode at PlainEnglish.com/134. I’m Jeff; the producer of the show is JR. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can join our email community by going to PlainEnglish.com/mail. If you do that, you’ll get an email every time a new episode comes out, and that email will have a summary of the program, links to articles about the main topic, and one additional vocabulary word for each episode. For example, the email about today’s episode will have an explanation of the word “bittersweet victory,” but if you’re not on the list, you won’t get it. Now, if you really want to know what “bittersweet victory” means, you can just ask me. But the best thing to do is just join this list and then you’ll get those words automatically in your inbox twice a week. PlainEnglish.com/mail.

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Unfortunately a lot of you guys on WhatsApp are forgetting one of the big rules we have at Plain English. I announced this rule a few months ago, but since we have some new listeners, I think we need to refresh our understanding of this rule. I do not want anyone in this audience apologizing for their English. Got that? First of all, we are all at different stages of our learning and being at an early stage is nothing to be embarrassed about. Second of all, the goal here is not to be perfect, it is to be understood. And I can tell you, I have never once received a note from someone in this audience that I could not understand. I have heard from hundreds of you, maybe even a thousand if you add up all the different ways we are in touch, and not once, not even a single time, did I not understand what a person was saying. So I don’t want to get any more messages saying, “Hi Jeff, I’m sorry for my English, but…”

Okay, now with that refresher out of the way, let’s start in on today’s main topic.


Breakdancing proposed for 2024 Olympics

The number of Olympic sports has been ever-expanding in recent decades, even sometimes testing the definition of the word “sport”. I’m talking about skateboarding, climbing, and surfing—to me, those seem more like “activities” rather than sports. But if the organizers of the Paris Olympics get their way, then breakdancing will be added to the list of activ—I mean, sports—for the 2024 Games.

Breakdancing is the energetic, often acrobatic type of dancing that is typically done to hip-hop music; it is the best-known style of hip-hop dance. It started in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and features usually one or two dancers at a time, usually on a street. There’s an interesting story about how it started. You know in a song, there’s often a part that’s just the instruments—no vocals. Either all the instruments play together or just one or two instruments can be heard. Well, according to the web site Breakdancing Ninja, this style of dance started when street DJs would mix together just the break section of dance records, so you’d get this rhythmic base that you can dance to.

If you’ve traveled to big cities in North America or even Europe, you’ve probably seen breakdancers on the street, maybe surrounded by a crowd of spectators. Maybe you’ve seen it at a wedding. They’re also in commercials and movies. The dancers are usually low to the ground, spinning around horizontally, flipping over, sometimes propping themselves vertically on one hand.

To the untrained eye (mine, for example), it looks like a lot of flying around. But there is a lot of technique to it, and breakdancing has evolved into a global phenomenon. In more formal competitions, dancers compete with one or two people in front of a panel of judges. Some of the official moves are called backflips, freezes, and headspins. Just last month, a breakdancing competition in Paris drew 4,000 spectators.

The IOC won’t officially consider new events for the 2024 Olympics at least until the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo are complete, so breakdancing fans will have to wait at least another year and a half to know if their sport will finally make it to the big stage. But the sport might have a chance; it’s popular in France, where the 2024 games will be played, and it has a youthful, global appeal. Breakdancing was even included in the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. Japan, Russia, Canada, France, and South Korea won medals at those Youth Olympics.

In addition to breakdancing, the Paris organizers have requested that skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing be included in the roster of Olympic sports. Those three are already on the docket for the Tokyo games in 2020. Unfortunately, if you’re a fan of chess or squash, your sport will definitely not be included: the Paris organizers have not put your sport forward to the IOC.

The list of Olympic sports has been growing in recent decades. In just the summer games, golf, rugby, BMX freestyle biking, and 3-on-3 basketball have also been added, in addition to the three new events for Tokyo, sport climbing, surfing, and karate. The Olympics are also pretty indecisive on baseball and softball. Those sports were included from 1992 through 2008, but were not on the roster of the last two Olympic games. They will be included in baseball-crazy Japan in 2020, but will probably not be featured in Paris.

If breakdancing were included in the 2024 games, it would be a bittersweet victory for the discipline of dance. For decades, organizers have been trying to get ballroom dancing included as an Olympic sport. Many governing bodies even changed their names to include the word “sport,” to bolster its chances and modernize dance’s image. But the IOC has never given its full blessing to ballroom dance; some people now doubt whether it ever will. The new sports being added tend to have a more youthful appeal than ballroom dancing has.


Years ago, when I was in college, I had an internship in Washington, DC, and the receptionist at the office was a competitive ballroom dancer in her spare time. This was her passion—she would dance in the evenings and on weekends. One day we had the opportunity to see her at a competition, and it was a lot of fun. They were really good: they moved very fast, worked together well. It was a fun time.

I did get to go to the Olympics once. Maybe some of you listening in Brazil went to the games in 2016. I went to the Olympics in London in 2012. I was fortunate to see table tennis and beach volleyball.

Quick reminder about our partner MosaLingua. A lot of you are high-tech learners and I know you’d like MosaLingua. There are a lot of great active-learning resources on there. Listening to podcasts is great; so is watching movies and TV. But sometimes you need to take a more active role in what you’re doing, and MosaLingua is a good way to do that. Check out all they have to offer at PlainEnglish.com/learn.

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Expression: To the untrained eye