For the first time, the Asian Games stage reverberated with the energetic beats of hip-hop music as participants flipped, shook and twirled their heads to compete in break dancing in Hangzhou on Friday.
The sport, officially called ‘breaking’, made its debut at the Asian Games on Friday. Breaking is scheduled to enter the Olympics next year.
Breakdancers’ performance at the Asian Games left the audience cheering loudly and wanting more.
Unlike participants in other Asian Games events, dancers dressed in baggy T-shirts, tracksuits and baseball caps performed to the beat of the competition on Friday.
The DJ spun the tracks and the MC got the contestants excited. The spectators, the vast majority of whom were young, waved glow sticks and cheered.
On the first day, Kim Hongyeol of the Republic of Korea and Qi Xiangyu of China competed in the men’s Group A round robin.
Now the acrobatic dance style, which originated on the streets of New York in the 1970s, is at the Asian Games for the first time and will also make its debut at next year’s Olympics.
Other participants such as Japan’s NakaraiI Shigeyuki, Hishikawa Isshin and others also performed on the first day of the competition.
