Canada's Philip 'Phil Wizard' Kim performs in the breaking event during the Summer Olympics in Paris, on Aug. 10. Kim took gold in the first Olympic men's breaking tournament Saturday.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
There are still some sports you can’t cry in, but break dancing seems to encourage it.
Canada’s Phil Wizard won gold on Saturday. The day before the event, he cried tears of fear. Then he won and cried with happiness. Later, he cried with relief.
“I doubted myself my entire life, so to be here means a lot,” Wizard, a.k.a. Philip Kim, said.
His win was Canada’s ninth of these Games. It’s the most in the summer iteration since the boycott-plagued Games of Los Angeles in 1984.
Wizard’s will be a little different from everyone else’s. He is not just the greatest b-boy at this moment, but possibly in history. Breaking debuted here, and there are no plans to repeat it next time around. So, Wizard has the greatest superlative of all – one of a kind.
There were two sections to break dancing at the Olympics – the dancing part, and then the explaining afterward part.
For instance, after Japan’s Hiro10 lost to Victor of the United States early in the competition. The crowd didn’t like it. They booed. Hiro10 burst into tears. Then a few people in the crowd cried as well. Which forced Victor – the defending world champion – to come out and explain what was going on to a bunch of reporters who weren’t even trying to pretend they understood anything about what they were watching.
“He’s very physical,” Victor said. “But I have more originality.”
Okay, but what about the booing?
“I understand the booing,” Victor said, aglow with patience. “They booed because they don’t understand breaking.”
Not understanding breaking is one of the real secrets of breaking, because breakdancers love to explain it to you. The Coles Notes – it’s not just funky freshness and spinning around on the ground. There are subtleties.
One thing that was easy to understand – Paris fans loved breaking. This is the first event I’ve been to where there were just as many people standing outside the arena watching as there were inside.
Every venue here in Paris has been hopping, but the X Games theme park they’ve constructed at the Place de la Concorde throbs. Maybe it’s the fact that none of it is covered. Everyone seems a little loopy.
Breaking takes this idea of discombobulation to the aesthetic max. It feels like this is what would happen if you let Zoolander run the Olympics.
The exaggerated greetings, the MCs shrieking while the competition is happening, the middle-aged DJs given the deference of great conductors, the noms de dance, the judges on risers, some of them inexplicably wearing fur Kangols in the midst of a heat warning. Every competitor goes into the ring like a heavyweight champ and leaves the same way.
If you watched someone here long enough – a fan, a security guard, a person in a mascot uniform – they would eventually begin rocking to the music the way breakdancers do. It’s called top rocking. We are all susceptible to it.
To enjoy this, you need a strong appetite for kitsch, as well as what Victor called “an appreciation of the new, evolved breaking.”
The break dancing you may know from back when you wore a pair of unlaced Adidas? Not evolved.
Nevertheless, the breakout star on the first night of competition was Rachael (Raygun) Gunn. She’s a 36-year-old Australian university instructor who teaches “the cultural politics of breaking.”
Let’s just say she may be better at theory than practice. She was annihilated by the judges but became a viral sensation.
On the men’s side, most of the competitors are professionals who work a global circuit. They all say they’re great friends, and may actually be telling the truth.
As Wizard spoke midway through the competition, the Frenchman he would later defeat in the gold-medal battle walked by and touched him on the shoulder. Wizard spun like a top.
“Good job, brother! Respect! Let’s go!”
Wizard is the sort of person who speaks in exclamation marks.
You don’t see this sort of thing in professional, well, anything. The pros respect each other, but they don’t trust each other. That other guy is trying to snatch the lunch out of your mouth.
Breaking is in a different position – it needs growth. Which means it needs evangelists more than it needs champions. The result is a flat hierarchy and a lot of lingering hugs.
That growth is not going to come via the Olympics long term. Organizers at Los Angeles 2028 have already declined to schedule the sport. It may resurface in Brisbane 2032, but it’s a long shot.
“The Olympics is not the be-all and end-all,” Wizard said. “I’m sad that this is a one-and-done, but I have a positive mindset moving forward. I think people will fall in love with breaking.”
This was their chance. Roughly 10 hours over two days wedged in at the end of a Games when people are beginning to tire of the whole thing. Was that enough to make an impression? The result will not be known for years.
Speaking as someone who now has a nuanced understanding of the sport gleaned over three, possibly, four hours of study, I’ll be sad, too. There aren’t many sports where the participants come out after spinning on their heads for five minutes and start talking like they’re quoting from the Tao Te Ching.
For instance, Victor on the topic of Wizard: “He’s amazing. He reminds me of me.”
Like Wizard, Victor said he was more focused here on conversion than personal achievement. He won a bronze and seemed genuinely elated. Afterward, he came back out to try converting a few new disciples.
How should one come to an understanding of this new, evolved breaking?
“Just watch. Pay attention,” Victor said, speaking slowly, as if to children. “Naturally, you will find the essence of it.”