Breaking Olympics 2024 was the sport’s first Olympic competition: 33 breakers battled at Place de la Concorde in Paris on 9 and 10 August 2024, and Japan’s B-Girl Ami and Canada’s B-Boy Phil Wizard won the first gold medals. Both champions swept their finals 3–0, in front of a packed urban park at the foot of the Luxor Obelisk.
This Champsquads guide gives you the verified medalists, how the nine judges scored each battle, how the field qualified, what really happened with Raygun, and why breaking is missing from Los Angeles 2028. Because many people also search the phrase for the biggest breaking news of the Paris Games, we cover those headlines and the final medal table too.
Breaking Olympics 2024 winners: the direct answer
Direct answer: At the Paris 2024 Olympics, B-Girl Ami (Ami Yuasa, Japan) won the women’s breaking gold on 9 August, and B-Boy Phil Wizard (Philip Kim, Canada) won the men’s gold on 10 August. Lithuania’s Nicka and France’s Dany Dann took silver; China’s 671 and the USA’s Victor took bronze. Breaking is not on the programme for LA 2028.
| Event | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| B-Girls (9 Aug 2024) | Ami – Ami Yuasa, Japan | Nicka – Dominika Banevič, Lithuania | 671 – Liu Qingyi, China |
| B-Boys (10 Aug 2024) | Phil Wizard – Philip Kim, Canada | Dany Dann – Danis Civil, France | Victor – Victor Montalvo, USA |
Paris 2024 breaking at a glance
- Venue and dates: La Concorde, Paris; B-Girls on 9 August, B-Boys on 10 August 2024.
- Field: 33 breakers, 17 B-Girls and 16 B-Boys.
- Format: one-on-one battles, a round robin and then knockout rounds.
- Judging: nine judges comparing five criteria: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality.
- Origins: a dance born in the Bronx, New York, in the 1970s hip-hop scene.
- Status: one appearance so far; not included at Los Angeles 2028.
Authority line: results and figures rechecked on 11 November 2026 (WAT) against the Olympics.com breaking results, the World DanceSport Federation’s official results book, Reuters and AP. The Paris 2024 Olympic Games ran from 26 July to 11 August 2024.
Breakdance Olympics 2024 winner stories: how the finals were won
Ami’s gold capped a near-flawless Friday. She beat France’s Syssy and the Netherlands’ India Sardjoe on the way to the final, then swept Lithuania’s Nicka 3–0, taking 16 of the 27 judges’ votes across three rounds. China’s 671 won the bronze battle 2–1 against India, whose run to the semi-finals was one of the surprises of the event.
The men’s event on Saturday was arguably even stronger. The four semi-finalists, Phil Wizard, Dany Dann, Victor and Japan’s Shigekix, were widely seen as the best B-Boys in the world. Wizard eliminated the favourite Shigekix in the semi-final, then handled a roaring home crowd to beat Dany Dann 3–0, collecting 23 of the 27 judges’ votes. Victor then beat Shigekix 3–0 for bronze, giving the USA a breaking medal.
The first Breaking podium at the Olympics
— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) August 9, 2024
🥇 B-girl Ami
🥈 B-girl Nicka
🥉 B-girl 671
📸 #Paris2024
How Olympic breaking worked: format and judging
Each event opened with a round robin of four groups of four. Every breaker danced three battles, each made up of two rounds of roughly a minute, and the top two from each group reached the quarter-finals. From there it was straight knockout, with battles extended to three rounds. The top four then met in semi-finals, followed by the bronze and gold medal battles on the same night.
Nine judges scored every round. Rather than giving a points total, each judge compared the two breakers on five equally weighted criteria, sliding a marker towards whoever was better on technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality. The breaker who won a majority of judges took the round, and the breaker who won more rounds took the battle. Scores were shown after each round in the round robin, which made the system easy for a first-time Olympic audience to follow.
Breaking Olympics 2024 athletes and qualifiers
The 33 athletes came from 16 teams. Most places were earned over roughly two years: the 2023 WDSF World Championships in Leuven, Belgium, gave direct places to its champions, and each continental championship sent its top eligible B-Boy and B-Girl. The breakdancing Olympics qualifiers of 2024 then decided 20 places, ten per event, through the Olympic Qualifier Series in Shanghai in May and Budapest in June.
That route produced a field that mixed established stars with first-time Olympians. The breaking Olympics 2024 athletes included world-class names such as Shigekix, Victor, Nicka and Ami, alongside continental champions who were competing on a global stage of this size for the first time. Because every battle was head-to-head, seeding mattered: the pre-competition WDSF world ranking decided the round-robin groups.
Raygun and the “bad breakdancing” debate
The most discussed moment of the event involved Australia’s Rachael Gunn, known as B-Girl Raygun. She lost all three of her round-robin battles, against Logistx, Syssy and Nicka, without winning any of the 54 judges’ votes, and clips of her unconventional moves spread worldwide within hours. Searches such as “bad breakdancing Olympics 2024” are largely about her.
The reaction quickly went beyond fair sporting criticism into ridicule and online abuse. The scores reflected how her rounds compared with a world-class field on the night; they were never a licence for personal attacks. Gunn retired from competitive breaking in November 2024, saying the response had made it too difficult to approach a battle, although she continues to dance for her own enjoyment. Her case shows how quickly a first-time Olympic sport can be defined by a single viral moment rather than by its champions.
Breaking Olympics 2024 as Paris headlines: the biggest stories
Direct answer: the biggest breaking stories from the 2024 Olympics in Paris included Simone Biles’ dominant return, Léon Marchand’s four golds for France, Noah Lyles’ photo-finish 100m win, the debut of breaking as an Olympic sport, and the intense controversy surrounding boxer Imane Khelif.
Two of those details need care. Lyles’ winning margin was five-thousandths of a second, 9.784 against 9.789. Khelif’s case did not end in Paris: World Boxing introduced mandatory sex testing in 2025, and the eligibility debate around her has continued.
Paris 2024 medal table snapshot
| Rank | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 40 | 44 | 42 | 126 |
| 2 | China | 40 | 27 | 24 | 91 |
| 3 | Japan | 20 | 12 | 13 | 45 |
| 4 | Australia | 18 | 19 | 16 | 53 |
| 5 | France | 16 | 26 | 22 | 64 |
The USA and China finished level on 40 golds. The USA ranked first because the tiebreaker is silver medals, where they led 44 to 27, as Reuters’ final medal-table report noted. The 126 total was the USA’s figure at the close; the women’s floor bronze was later reassigned from Jordan Chiles to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu, a decision the Court of Arbitration for Sport is re-examining.
Other Olympic Games headlines tie into our coverage. The USA men’s basketball team won a fifth straight gold by beating France 98–87, with Victor Wembanyama scoring 26 for the hosts; our guide to FIBA basketball rules explains how Olympic rules differ from the NBA. In sport climbing, the combined boulder-and-lead events went to Britain’s Toby Roberts and Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret.
Nigeria 2024 Olympics and the Tokyo 2020 comparison
For Nigerian readers, Paris was a tough Games: Team Nigeria left without a medal. The highlight was D’Tigress, who became the first African basketball team to reach an Olympic quarter-final before losing to the USA. The Super Falcons lost all three group games to Brazil, Spain and Japan. At the Nigeria Olympic Games of Tokyo 2020, the team won two medals: Blessing Oborududu’s wrestling silver and Ese Brume’s long-jump bronze. For the men’s football side, see our Super Eagles squad guide and the final World Cup 2026 qualifiers table.
What Paris 2024 proved about Olympic breaking
Judged purely on sporting terms, the debut delivered. The six medals went to six different countries across Asia, Europe and North America, so no single nation dominated the podium. Both finals were decisive 3–0 wins, which helped a brand-new judging system look credible to first-time viewers. The comparative scoring also suited a battle format: instead of chasing an abstract points total, every round asked a simple question, who was better right now, and the screen showed the answer within seconds.
The event also kept the culture visible. Breakers competed under their stage names, the crowd reacted to individual moves the way it would at a jam, and the medallists were established names from breaking’s own competitive circuit, including world and continental champions. For anyone assessing whether breaking deserves another chance, those are stronger arguments than any single viral clip from the round robin.
Breaking Olympics 2028: why it is not in Los Angeles
The decision on breaking at the Olympics in 2028 was made before Paris. In October 2023, the IOC approved the five extra sports proposed by the LA28 organisers: baseball and softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash. Breaking was not among them, so breakdancing at the Olympics in 2028 will not happen, regardless of how the debut went.
The door is not closed for good. The World DanceSport Federation has bid for a place at Brisbane 2032, and under the IOC’s new discipline-by-discipline review the Brisbane programme is due to be settled in 2027, as The Sports Examiner reports. Until then, the only Olympic breaking champions remain Ami and Phil Wizard.
Breaking is a summer discipline, so it had no place at the Winter Olympics of Milano Cortina 2026, where Alysa Liu of the USA won women’s single skating gold after the free skating. For now, breaking’s Olympic future depends on that Brisbane review rather than on the winter or summer programmes already fixed.
Where to watch Olympic breaking again
Full replays of the Paris battles are on the Olympics.com breaking results pages linked above, which are the best place to watch the Summer Olympic Games’ breaking finals again. For live sport in the meantime, follow our football scores and fixtures, the weekly predictions and the latest football injury updates. Basketball fans can also use our basketball prediction tips.
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FAQ
Does Raygun actually know how to breakdance?
Yes. Rachael Gunn is an experienced Australian breaker who earned her Paris place by winning the WDSF Oceania Breaking Championships in October 2023, when she was the top-ranked B-Girl in the region. She also holds a PhD in cultural studies research on breaking. Her Paris rounds were unconventional and scored poorly against a world-class field, but that is different from not knowing the dance. ABC News and Associated Press both report her Oceania title and academic background.
What is breakdancing called now?
Breaking. That is the term used by the dance’s own community, the World DanceSport Federation and the Olympic programme; competitors are called B-Boys and B-Girls. “Breakdancing” became popular as a media label in the 1980s, and many dancers consider it inaccurate. NBC Olympics’ breaking glossary and Gothamist’s history of the dance both make this distinction.
Who is the current world champion in breakdancing?
As of 11 November 2026, the WDSF world champions are Japan’s B-Boy Shigekix (Shigeyuki Nakarai) and China’s B-Girl Royal (Guo Pu), who won the 2025 World Breaking Championships in Kurume, Japan, in December 2025. Royal, then 17, gave China its first title at the event. The 2026 championships are scheduled for 4–6 December in Paris. Red Bull BC One also crowns its own annual world-final champions, a separate title.
Who got disqualified from the Olympics in 2024?
In breaking, the Refugee Olympic Team’s B-Girl Talash (Manizha Talash) was disqualified from the B-Girls pre-qualifier on 9 August 2024 for wearing a cape reading “Free Afghan Women”, breaching the rule against political slogans on competition clothing. She had already lost that battle 3–0 to India Sardjoe of the Netherlands. The official WDSF results book and AP both record the disqualification. Other sports had separate disqualification cases.
