For the first time, the Asian Games stage was echoing with energetic beats of hip-hop music as participants flipped, jigged and spun on their heads to compete in breakdancing in Hangzhou on Friday.
Officially called as Breaking, the sport made its debut in Asian Games on Friday. Breaking is all set to make its entry in Olympics next year.
The peformance of breakdancers at the Asian Games left the audience cheering out loud and wanting for more.
Unlike participants of other Asian Games events, dancers in baggy T-shirts, tracksuits and baseball caps performed on throbbing beat in the competition on Friday.
A DJ spun tracks and an MC hyped the contestants up. Spectators, who were overwhelmingly young, waved glow sticks and whooped.
On the first day, Kim Hongyul from the Republic of Korea and Qi Xiangyu from China competed in the Men's Round Robin Group A Battle 1.
Now the acrobatic dance style, which originated on the streets of 1970s New York, is at the Asian Games for the first time and will also debut next year at the Olympics.
Other participants like, Japan's NakaraiI Shigeyuki, Hishikawa Isshin, and others also performed on the first day of the competition.
To organise the breaking competition at Asian Games, the management used the same venue that was used for conducting table tennis matches.
The venue of table tennis was turned into break dancing stage within 36 hours. The sport is set to make its another debut at the Paris Olympics next year. On Friday, b-boys and b-girls competed in the continental showpiece for the first time. They performed tricks to ear-splitting jams in front of a panel of judges and several thousand spectators.
Along with esports' debut as a medal event in Hangzhou, organisers hope "breaking" can help attract young viewers turned off by traditional Games sports.
