Breaking adds more Olympic dreams: B-Boy Victor and B-Girl Nicka, world champions and with a ticket to Paris

Before making a judgment about the decisions taken by the IOC when it comes to incorporating new disciplines into its programs, there are a few things to consider. It is not just a question of taste, the popularity of the discipline or of historically acquired rights. For some time now, the search for new audiences through disciplines considered young or referential to urban areas seems to be the fundamental logic that mobilizes choice.

It is no coincidence, for example, that some of them, before reaching the sports Olympus of the Summer Olympic Games, crossed the experimental sieve of the YOGs.

Buenos Aires 2018 was an eloquent example in this regard. Disciplines such as freestyle BMX, 3x3 basketball or sport climbing were part of an extraordinary public success, especially when it came to a competition, logically due to a question of age, without established figures.

The same thing happened with breaking, a discipline that will debut in Paris and whose progress in the Olympic universe still causes suspicion on the part of analysts and the most traditionalist fans.

In Leuven, Belgium, the 2023 Breaking WDSF World Championship was held and gave the champions, B-Boy Victor and B-Girl Nicka, the qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The American B-Boy Victor (28 years old), whose full name is Victor Montalvo, repeated the title won in 2021 in Paris by once again defeating Canadian B-Boy Phil Wizard 2-1 in the final.

“Now it’s time to go back to the laboratory and fine-tune,” the Kissimmee, Florida born who became national champion last May and will seek to become the first Olympic champion in Paris: “I really think I have a lot of chances.”

Among women, the world champion was the Lithuanian B-Girl Nicka, only 16 years old, who won the definition and also 2-1 against the Japanese B-Girl Ayumi, who was defending the title won two years ago.

“The final was very good because I had energy. The music and the audience energized me,” said Dominika Benevic, as B-Girl Nicka is called. She said: “Besides, it’s the final, so you have to do your best because you can win an Olympic ticket. I did my best and simply let go of all the thoughts that were in my head. I thought ‘I have nothing to lose’ and I won.”

With this world title won in Leuven, B-Boy Victor and B-Girl Nicka joined the Frenchman B-Boy Dany and the Dutch B-Girl India, who won the ticket to Paris 2024 by winning the gold medal at the European Games in Krakow 2023. Meanwhile, the first finishers were the Moroccan B-Girl Elmamouny and B-Boy Billy when they won the 2023 WDSF Africa Breaking Championship.

The Asian Games in Hangzhou, the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile and the qualifier in Oceania (to be confirmed) will be the other events that will grant places and the last 14 places will be up for grabs in the Olympic Qualification Series between March and June next year.

There will be 16 B-Boys and 16 B-Girls, all born before December 31, 2008, who will seek to become the first Olympic champions in the history of breaking in Paris. The event will be held on August 9th and 10th, in the Plaza de la Concordia.