Liberal Arts Blog — Breakdancing, Skateboarding, Surfing: new Olympic sports in 2024!
Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is the Joy of Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day
Today’s Topic: Breakdancing, Skateboarding, Surfing: new Olympic sports in 2024!!!!
What sports deserve “Olympic” status? Once upon a time, poetry, sculpture, and music were part of the Olympics. That would have been between 1912 and 1948. Then, too, there was the era of tug-of-war, kite-flying, and cannon shooting. How about pigeon or sled dog racing? Sometimes the Committee changes its mind very quickly. The recent cancellation of Greco-Roman wrestling, for example, was quickly retracted after a Tsunami of push back. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
BREAKDANCING — making the Olympics cool again!
1. Created by African American and Puerto Rican youth in the US in the early 1970s.
2. Consists of four sets of basic moves: toprock (standing position), downrock (floor position), power moves (acrobatics), and freezes (style poses).
3. Terminology: original term was “b-boying” or “break-boying” and a practitioner was a b-boy (break-boy) or a b-girl (break-girl).
NB: “B-boy pioneers Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon and Kenneth “Ken Swift” Gabbert, both of Rock Steady Crew, cite James Brown and Kung Fu films as influences.”
SURFING — 50 YEARS LATER A DREAM COME TRUE
1. “The dreams of Duke Kahanamoku (above) have finally become a reality. As surfing’s earliest ambassador, the Hawaiian icon advocated for the sport’s inclusion in the pinnacle of competition, the Olympic Games. And more than 50 years after Duke’s initial push, surfing has officially become an Olympic sport.”
2. The decision was unanimous.
3. Artificial arena with standardized waves? or the open ocean? The choice: the ocean. Specifically, in Japan, at Shidashita Beach, 40 miles outside of Tokyo.
NB: But if the sport fails to ignite the younger set, it could be discontinued.
SKATEBOARDING — could the Olympics harm its bad boy ethos?
1. A sell out or a great leap forward into uncharted waters? Will it corrupt the cooperative spirit with competitiveness and a quest for fame and glory?
2. “At this point, I feel like they need our cool factor more than we need their validation.” Tony Hawk (above), skateboarding icon.
3. Skateboarding originated as “sidewalk surfing” in southern California in the late 1940s when surfers looked for a way of surfing when the waves were flat.
NB: The sport was made illegal in Norway between 1978 and 1989 because of the risk of injury. Damage to curbs, benches, and ledges where skateboarders do tricks such as “grinds,” has been another source of community discontent. Grinds involve sliding along the surface of an object along the “truck” — the axle on the underside of the board.
PERSONAL CONCLUSION
I can’t wait for the return of poetry, painting, and music.
Opinion | Breakdancing Comes to the Olympics
10 Things You Should Know About Surfing in the Olympics
Skateboarding does not need Games validation, says Hawk
Click here for the last three years of posts arranged by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.
This is your chance to make some one else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
