Olympic events are traditionally rich in history.
But for Paris 2024, there will be a new kid on the block — the sport of breaking.
The style of dance was developed on the streets of the United States, coinciding with the birth of hip-hop in the 1970s.
B-Boys and B-Girls would battle it out on the streets, but official breakdancing competitions were still decades away.
In 2018, the sport was trialled at the Youth Olympics. When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked Paris to name new sports it would like to include, the 2024 Games host had breaking at the top of the list.
A faithful clique of breakdancers in Australia has also been growing the sport, albeit underground, over the past two decades.
Leah Clark is one of the originals. She recently helped form the Australian Breaking Association, to aid with the sport's development.
'Jam' sessions — no training
"When I started, there were no classes for breakers," Clark said.
"There were jam sessions and there were a couple of competitions, but literally we had to look on the vast videos on YouTube to actually figure out what we were doing."
She said people in the early days used to exchange videotapes to check out how different crews were practising.
While the technology has changed, dancers still learn to break the same as always.
"It's an individual dance and it's all about creating your own individual style and your own unique moves."
Catching a break in Paris
Breaking was first in competition at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.
Due to its success, the sport will feature at the outdoor street stadium La Concorde at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
The competition will include a men's and a women's event – 16 B-Boys and 16 B-Girls will go head-to-head in solo battles in which they have to improvise to the beat of the tracks.
Each attempt will be scored by a panel of judges.
"With the announcement of breaking coming into the Olympics, I think there's a lot of the next gen really taking things much more seriously now," Clark said.
Preparation a 'full-time job'
John Olis is based in Brisbane and hopes to qualify for the Australian team in 2024.
"It takes a lot of stamina, determination, all of that, and your creative artistry," he said.
At breakdancing competitions, athletes are judged on creativity, style, battle essence, character, energy and execution.
When it comes to selecting the country's first Olympic breaking team, Olis said he believed the green and gold will be spoilt for choice.
"[The next generation] they're really good, they're really something different," he said.
"They're eating, I don't know, a different type of cereal but they're spinning 10 times more — they're way stronger, more agile and way more focused."
Jacob Goodridge, 34, also hopes to compete in Paris and said the inclusion of breaking in Olympic competition was "a long time coming".
"I just always wanted to know what the human body was capable of in terms of being creative and being athletic," he said.
"You have to practise a lot of gymnastic moves, a lot of flips, flares that type of thing, a lot of handstands, just building up those individual muscles."
What about Brisbane?
While medals will be awarded in Paris, breaking has not been confirmed for Olympic competition beyond 2024.
Clark said breakers were hopeful, given the development of the dance community in Australia, it would be included at the Brisbane Games in 2032.
"The fact that we've got such a massive amount of people who break in Queensland [and] have represented internationally in the past, to have a platform that's in our hometown to be able to do that will be incredible," she said.
Paris is the second Olympic host given the option of proposing additional sports for its Games, as part of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) reforms of the Olympic Agenda.
At the time of breakdancing's inclusion, IOC President Thomas Bach said: "The four sports that Paris has proposed are all totally in line with Olympic Agenda 2020 because they contribute to making the programme more gender balanced and more urban and offer the opportunity to connect with the younger generation."
All these are ideals make the perfect case for Brisbane, according to the city's breakdancing community.
"It'd be amazing, you know, all the best in the world coming to Brisbane," Goodridge said.
"If Australia gets behind us and supports us, as they need to, then we have a good chance."
