LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Olympics in Paris 2024 will have two new events. A world competition of many sports, the 2024 Summer Games will now have 363 medal events in 45 sports. This is a big difference from when it first started in 1896 with just 43 events in 9 sports.
The two new events that will be included are Breaking and Kayak Cross.
Breaking
Breaking is an urban dance that started in the United States around the 1970s. The sport of breaking was featured in the Summer Youth Olympics Games in Argentina 2018. It was a success in Argentina.
The competition will be of two events. One for men and one for women. 16 B-boys and 16B-Girls will go head-to-head in spectacular solo battles. They will use dance moves to improvise to the music and judges will vote for who will take home the gold.
Lithuanian B-Girl Nicka (Dominika Benevic) and American B-Boy Victor (Victor Montalvo) are the favorites to win the gold in Paris. They won the 2023 Breaking WDSF World Championship in Belgium.
“I feel like I have a really high chance” to medal there, Victor told the Associated Press last year speaking about his ambitions for the Olympics in less than a year’s time.
Kayak Cross
Kayak cross is a new event that is a part of canoe slalom. Up until now, there were four events in canoe slalom men’s canoe singles (C-1), men’s kayak singles (K-1), women’s kayak singles (K-1), and men’s canoe doubles (C-2) until the latter was substituted for women’s canoe singles (C-1) at Tokyo 2020.
Kayak cross is to put it easy terms an extreme canoe slalom. After the time trials that will form the basis of seeding for head-to-head rounds. Four kayaks will be competing to get to the finish line first. Contact is permitted as long as it is not dangerous.
Each athlete must also complete a compulsory Eskimo roll (roll the kayak and complete a 360-degree flip). Does it sound extreme enough for you?
France’s Boris Neveu is someone to watch for in the 2024 kayak cross. He won gold in 2023 in his home country and will be ready to represent again in 2024. On the women’s side, American Evy Leibfarth is one to keep an eye on. At 14 she became the top-ranking paddler in the United States and won her first World Cup medal at 15.
“I’m really excited about going out there and seeing what I can do rather than putting a bunch of pressure on myself. At the end of the day, it’s just an amazing, really cool race,” Leibfarth says of Paris.
The Olympics should be able to get more young viewers with these two new exciting events. If they do well, they can also be kept for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. The new event for 2028 will be flag football which many people are excited about already.
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