All eyes are on Paris this week as the City of Romance prepares to launch the 33rd Olympiad. Over 10,000 athletes will descend on France as Olympics 2024 will explode into life on Friday 26th July.
There will be 329 events across 32 sports over 17 days of spectacular entertainment, with some exciting new stars to look out for and a whole new event, as Breaking makes its first appearance at the Olympics. There are plenty of new sports which apply to be included, to give greater visibility to their sports and an increase in participation and funding (after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics the IOC distributed over $500m to sports federations) but it is not an easy process.
It can take years to be recognised and accepted, and IOC members vote on the initial sports programme up to seven years before the scheduled Olympics. But one sport has smashed its way through the bureaucracy and it’s a real departure from the traditional track and field events.
Breaking, more commonly known as Break-dancing for those of us of a certain age, originated around the 1980s as the American hip hop culture spread around the world. 1980s band the Rock Steady Crew provided one of the most iconic soundtracks of the day and the craze spread around the world, initially to Canada and Brazil and then further afield.
In Europe, France was a fertile ground for hip hop and break-dancing, with groups including the Paris City Breakers cultivating a huge fan-base and, in 1984, France became the first country in the world to have a nationally broadcast TV programme about Hip Hop, hosted by Sidney Duteil, the French rapper.
Is it a sport or is Breaking a cultural art form?
Well that depends on your personal point of view I guess, but France, looking for an Olympics Games with a young, trendy and urban feel have embraced it with open arms and the competition in Paris will feature men’s and women’s events with head-to-head dance-offs of three one-minute rounds. Judges will look for innovation, physical prowess and personal style and Breaking will bring a new fan-base to the Olympics. Stars to look out for include USA’s women’s breaker Sunny Choi and Canada’s Phil Wizard.
In another ingenious development at the Olympics, Kayaking, traditionally a timed individual event, has been joined by Kayak Cross, where four athletes will go down a white-water course together in a race. The event will start as the four racers drop into the water from an overhead ramp before they race to the finish line…now that will be worth watching!
New Kids on the Block
Football is not particularly renowned as an Olympics sport but we love the beautiful game and, here at SBOTOP we’ll be rounding up the football takeaways as part of our Olympics 2024 updates, and there are a number of world stars lined up to wow the fans, including Manchester City’s Julian Alvarez and Olympique Lyonnais’ Alexandre Lacazette. The early Olympics 2024 betting odds reckon we could be in for a repeat of the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France and that would be some clash.
And elsewhere, there will be some big names in the women’s and men’s basketball teams, another sport which has grown in popularity in recent Olympics.
But in other sports there are some lesser known, and very young, athletes ready to burst onto our screens; so let’s have a look at three of the most exciting.
Quincy Wilson
The youngest man in history to represent Team USA in track and field, the 16-year-old Williams is the world record holder in 400m at U18 level. He broke the record that had stood for 42 years, with an explosive time of 44.66 seconds and he has been named in the USA’s 4x400m relay team. A medal is well within Williams’ reach.
Phoebe Gill
Hot on the heels of Manchester’s 800m star Keely Hodgkinson, another young middle distance runner has emerged and, at 17 years of age, Phoebe Gill is set to become the youngest British track athlete to compete at an Olympics for over four decades. She broke the European U18 record in a time of one minute 57.86 seconds in May, and Gill will run alongside Hodgkinson in a medal hunt in France.
Summer McIntosh
Swimming is one of the most popular sports at the Olympics and Canadian star McIntosh is making her second appearance at the tender age of 17. She is the world record holder in the 400m individual medley and the second fastest woman in history in the 400m freestyle.
In Paris, McIntosh will compete in the 400m individual medley and the 200m butterfly and is a serious medal hope in both events.
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