Breaking: it’s breaking. The Olympics’ newest summer sport had its gala opening on Friday at the pop-up stadium on Place de la Concorde, where the tall marble statues of France’s great ladies looked down as the DJ struck up the opening notes of Tom Zé’s 1972 hit Dor e Dor and two young B-girls, India, 18, from the Netherlands, and Talash, 21, from Afghanistan, took the stage for the breaking competition’s first-ever match. In case you hadn’t already guessed that the International Olympic Committee is no longer in Kansas, let alone Lausanne, that was already evident in the opening moments.

Talash, who was born in Kabul but now lives in Madrid and competed for the IOC’s refugee team, ripped off her top in the middle of the opening bout, revealing a bright blue cape with “Free Afghan Women” written on the back in bright white letters. The IOC has banned all athletes from making political statements, and watching Talash twirl and pirouette in her cape, you could just imagine IOC President Thomas Bach letting out a spit as he looked up from his cup of coffee in the VIP suite. Talash didn’t make it past the preliminary round, but she had already said and done a lot for her sport in that one viral moment.

Later in the competition, another viral moment occurred when Raygun, a 35-year-old university lecturer from Australia, delivered a memorable performance that included imitating a kangaroo and a seemingly dying fish. It didn’t help that, while everyone else was in civilian clothes, Raygun had come in an Australian team tracksuit that made her look like the first reserve for the rowing eight.

Still, Raygun himself wrote after it was all over: “Don’t be afraid to be different, go out there and represent yourself.” Breaking is joyful, athletic, boisterous, fun and expressive. None of this means it necessarily has to be an Olympic sport. Competitions have been held around the world since the early 1990s, but it was all pretty loose and organizers had to put in a lot of work to get it in shape for the Games. The IOC asked the World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF), best known for organizing ballroom dance competitions, to take over the reins, despite having no previous relationship with the breaking community. That’s why the WDSF was initially convinced that Olympic breaking should be scored on points, like artistic gymnastics.

But that’s not how it actually works. Breaking is best understood as a contest between the two dancers, who take turns reacting to each other’s movements. It’s not about how well you perform a particular trick, but how much better your routine is than your opponent’s. So the WDSF eventually developed a comparative judging system in which nine judges rate the two dancers in each competition on a sliding scale over five bars. The dancers, who have no idea what they’re going to dance to, compete one-on-one for three rounds.

Other Olympic sports are trying to move away from subjective scoring because it is so opaque and on the first day of the breaking round it was undeniably difficult to analyse who had won and why. But there really is no other way. “Train like an athlete and dance like an artist,” says Portuguese B-girl Vanessa. “It’s a competition, but above all it’s an art. It’s important to keep that balance because we express ourselves through our bodies, just like a painter with a canvas.”

Besides Vanessa, Talash and India, Ayumi, a 41-year-old kindergarten teacher from Japan, Syssy, a 16-year-old French student, Raygun, a 35-year-old university lecturer from Australia, and Sunny, a 35-year-old New Yorker who quit her job as a marketing manager at Estée Lauder to pursue this career, were also in the mix. And if you doubt the wisdom of their decision, watch the five-minute clip of their spectacular bout against Chinese B-Girl 671, which was as exciting and skillful as anything the gymnasts have shown at the Bercy Arena so far.

Breaking is more of a party than a sport, but the music was great, the stands were packed, and the media area was packed. There was even a line outside the Olympic Family booth for the various Games dignitaries, which is usually half empty at all other venues. Even Snoop Dogg was there to perform the ceremonial opening. Everyone wanted to be there.

That’s why it’s so strange that the sport has already been dropped from the calendar of the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, as if it had been found wanting even before its debut. The LA organizing committee preferred to select cricket, baseball and flag football, among others. Which is a shame. The Olympics should belong to everyone, and breakdancing represents a culture and serves a community that has had little reason to tune in, tune in or participate until now. Most dancers here have never even dreamed of being Olympians because it never occurred to them that it could be a possibility.

And besides, it works much better than canoe sprinting on TikTok.

Still, the first Games could also be the last, which would be oddly fitting in a city that has so far hosted the only Olympic competitions in pigeon shooting, hot air ballooning, and music composition. This final competition was judged by an impressive jury of Bela Bartok, Gabriel Faure, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, and Arthur Honegger, who ultimately decided that none of the submitted works were “worthy of a prize.” The jury for the breakdancing competition had no such concerns. The first breakdancing medal of the Olympics was the bronze, awarded to 671. Silver went to Nicka, a 17-year-old Lithuanian who learned the sport through YouTube, and gold to Ami of Japan.