Claim:

Breakdancing will not be a discipline at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Evaluation:

context

The announcement was made before the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and the exclusion had nothing to do with breakdancing’s participation in those games.

In the final days of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, breakdancing, or breaking, made a viral debut on the Olympic stage. The virality of the new discipline was sparked at least in part by an Australian breaker named “Raygun,” whose performance zero points:

Following the closing ceremony of the Paris Games, the claim that breakdancing would not be performed at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles was widely reported in the media. TV, pressAnd Social media.

It is true that breakdancing will not be a discipline at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. But it is wrong to say that it was “removed” because of the events in Paris or that its absence is related to them. Breakdancing was never proposed as a discipline in LA, and the LA Olympic Committee’s proposed schedule was in October 2023.

Breakdance was first announced as an Olympic discipline in December 2020after it was successfully included in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. Events are continuously added and removed from the Olympic program in order to Keep it relevantAs described in the Encyclopedia Britannica, some sports that fail to make it in one year may resurface in later years, while others may fade into obscurity:

Tug of war, for example, was once a prestigious Olympic sport. Polo, powerboating, racket racing, roque and water skiing were all once part of the Olympics but were dropped over the years, while cricket and lacrosse are among the sports that were dropped but later reinstated.

In October 2023, the Los Angeles Olympic Committee voted for an event program that did not include breakdancing, but five new events: Cricket, flag football, baseball and softball, lacrosse and squash.

Although this schedule has not yet been ratified by the IOC – that will not happen until 2025 – it is likely that future changes to the program would mean the cancellation of events, as the LA plan already exceeds the maximum number of athletes allowed. Washington Post:

The five new sports, as well as weightlifting, modern pentathlon and boxing, mean that LA 28 will significantly exceed the limit of 10,500 athletes set by the IOC for the Summer Games. IOC officials acknowledged this late last week when they presented the new program for voting on Monday. Some disciplines within the current summer sports could be removed and the athlete cap adjusted before the schedule for Los Angeles 2025 is finalized.

Some on-line speculated that negative press surrounding breakdancing’s debut at the Paris Olympics led to the event not being included in the LA program. Since these decisions were made before the Paris Games, they were incorrect.

However, since breakdancing was not actually proposed as a discipline in the 2028 Olympic program, the claim that it will not be part of these Games is “true.”

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