Paris Olympics 2024: Indian breakers wait for their big break

Born on the streets of New York in the 1970s, breaking got the ultimate mainstream seal of approval when it was added to the Olympics roster for the 2024 Paris Games. Even though the dance sport, seen as the bastion of the young, is set to make its much-anticipated debut on 9 August 9 at Place de la Concorde, for India’s breakers, 2024 proved to be a dream too far for Indian breakers.

“It's still very niche; it's not everybody's cup of tea,” says Arif Chaudhary, one of India’s leading B-Boys who won the Red Bull BC One Cypher India 2024 competition for the fifth time on 6 July.

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A cruder form of the art, called ‘breakdancing’, was introduced to India via Bollywood in the 1980s. But India woke up to ‘breaking’ only in the last decade or so. The buzz around the sport has increased, leading to a rise in numbers and in the quality of competition. The sport has moved out of traditional metropolitan urban centres and is now finding fanfare in smaller towns: The winner of Red Bull BC One India women’s competition, Simran Ranga, hails from Jaipur.

However, it’s a solitary pursuit, with Indian practitioners forced to carve an identity for themselves under their own steam. Though there is a governing federation -- Amateur DanceSport Federation of India -- there is no clear system or competition structure in place.

For the Paris Olympics, the qualification process for breaking was one of the toughest: Only the top 32—16 B-Boys and 16 B-Girls—made it to the Olympics. While top athletes from other countries competed in a minimum of 10 events per year, most Indians struggled to raise enough funds to travel to more than three events in the two-year Olympic qualification cycle.

“I competed in two Olympic qualifiers (Hong Kong, Asian Championship in China,” says Ranga, aka B-Girl Glib, who captured her second Red Bull title on the trot. “We had spent out of our pocket to travel for these tournaments. Breaking is fairly new in India. Our federation doesn’t sponsor, they only help with documents, like letter for the visa. That is why none of us have been able to qualify for Paris. We tried, but this is as far as we could go on our own.”

Even the few times that they had the funds, Ranga adds, figuring out logistics and paperwork until the last minute robbed them of vital practice time. The Olympic-fuelled dreams apart, breakers are struggling to stay with the sport due to a lack of financial support.

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“I was not even thinking of the Olympics,” says Mugdha Mangaonkar, aka B-Girl MGK. The 30-year-old breaker from Navi Mumbai picked up the sport in 2013. But after more than a decade of devotion, she is feeling the pinch. “There is no proper revenue stream,” says Mangaonkar. “Sometimes you get income from shoots, but that is very rare.”

She supplements her income from breaking by working as an online coaching, and, earlier, as a gym trainer. Mangaonkar says that although she is a graduate and has done some professional courses, she doesn’t want to take up a full-time job as that would mean the end of her breaking career. “My family and friends are supportive, but they say do something on the side,” she says.

Lack of competitions at home is also stalling Indian breakers’ progress. Red Bull BC One India, established in 2015, is the biggest breaking competition in the country. While it doesn’t offer any prize money, Indian champions get an opportunity to compete at the world finals.

National competitions organised by the federation are few and far between with a prize money of about ₹7000-10,000. Local jams and a handful of pan-India events, by private organisers, keep the breakers going but they still don’t have enough avenues to test and tweak, learn and grow. Unlike other performance sports like gymnastics at the Olympics, where participants can practice and perfect their routines, a breaker has to improvise and jam in sync with the beats provided by the DJ.

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Despite the persistent problems, there is a sense of pride in the Indian community as breaking approaches its Olympic breakthrough moment. “Since breaking started it has always been evolving. It started on the streets, then it came to the clubs, then it came to studios, then stages and now it’s at the Olympics.” says Chaudhary, 26, whose first dance studio was Mumbai’s sidewalks.

“Earlier, a layman watching would think breakers are broke, or have nothing better to do. Even in Bollywood, breakers would be used as fillers. The hero is at the centre, the girls are around him and at the back some guy is doing a backflip. But now that it is part of the Olympics, it has opened new doors for us. People look at us as athletes.”

There has been some interest shown by the Madhya Pradesh government as well. In conjunction with the MP state government, Chaudhary with B-Boy Kareem (US breaker Kareem Gwinn) have been holding 15-day breaking camps in Bhopal, about four times a year for the past two years. Easy access to internet and social media has taken breaking to the masses. While the pioneering generation had to rely on videos and online tutorials, youngsters now have the benefit of player-turned-coaches, who know how tough the road ahead is.

“Every time I enter a competition, I see at least three-four new faces. The fact is that around the world, even in India, the numbers are increasing,” says Ranga, 22. “Lots of kids are enthusiastic about it. I had recently judged a battle that featured more than 60 kids. If kids are participating, that means parents are also aware of breaking and want their kids to be a part of it. The word is spreading.”

Olympics or not, Indian breakers are carrying the torch.

Deepti Patwardhan is a sportswriter based in Mumbai.

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