Five decades after its birth in the basements of the Bronx, breaking is at the Olympic Games for the first time.

Ahead of the long awaited opening event in Paris, here’s all you need to get ready for the sport’s Olympic debut.

NBC Olympics Research contributed to this guide.

Breaking originated in the Bronx, New York, in the early 1970s, after DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell), a Jamaican American DJ, noticed that young people tended to dance more energetically during the instrumental section (the "break") of a song. He pioneered the technique of mixing and producing a continuous danceable beat, or a "breakbeat". Campbell, commonly known simply as "Herc", emphasized the instrumental portion of a record, particularly the percussion and the bass, and his breaks helped form the basis of hip-hop music. The birth of hip-hop and breaking are closely intertwined, and hip-hop culture remains an integral part of breaking culture.

Using two turntables and a mixer, a 16-year-old Herc isolated the instrumental grooves from existing records, which he referred to as "the get down part" of the records. Herc and his younger sister Cindy hosted a "Back to School Jam" on Aug. 11, 1973, in the Bronx, where Herc debuted his new breaks drawn from James Brown's 1970 album "Sex Machine". Herc charged 25 cents for girls and 50 cents for boys who came to the party. "Once they heard that, there was no turning back," Herc said in 1998. "They always wanted to hear breaks after breaks after breaks."

Demand grew for Herc to host more parties and events, and he soon hosted a dance contest where the winning couple earned $25. He called the dancers break-boys and break-girls and coined the terms B-Boy and B-Girl, which are used today in breaking. Herc said that the term breaking was 1970s slang for "getting excited", "acting energetically", or "causing a disturbance."

Breaking began as toprock, performed standing up. By the mid-1970s, breakers incorporated freeze, in which they halted movement while balancing in a stylish or difficult position. By the early 1980s, downrock became a part of breaking, where breakers showcased their footwork with their bodies close to the floor. Early downrock was drawn from the Ukrainian Tropak dance. By 1983, a B-Boy named Powerful PEX, along with the New York City Breakers, added power moves, which are the most prominent, flashy and acrobatic moves that the sport is widely known for today. In the 1990s, Euro-style and Toronto-style downrocks added more complex moves to breaking. Toprock, downrock, power moves and freezes form the basis of breaking today.

Breaking spread through the New York City boroughs in the 1970s, popular especially among Black and Puerto Rican youths, and it gained exposure on television and in Hollywood movies in the 1980s, which helped it spread worldwide.

The longest-running breaking competition in the world is Battle of the Year, which has been held annually since its debut in Germany in 1990 (it was then called the International Breakdance Cup). The World DanceSport Federation was officially recognized by the IOC in 1997, and the WDSF initially tried unsuccessfully to push other forms of dance into the Olympics. Then, seeing the appeal of breaking among younger fans, as well as its relatively low cost with few competitors needed, the WDSF succeeded in getting breaking added to the 2018 Youth Olympic program. After breaking was successful in 2018 in Buenos Aires, the sport was officially added to the Olympic program on Dec. 7, 2021, set to make its Olympic debut at the 2024 Paris Games. Breaking is not scheduled to be included on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic program.

Sixteen men and 17 women will compete in Paris. In the women's event, the 16th- and 17th-seeded athletes will face each other in a pre-qualifier battle, with the winner advancing to the round robin and the loser being eliminated. The men's event begins immediately with the round robin. From that point on, the format is the same for both events.

Each battle in the round robin (which features four groups of four athletes each) consists of two rounds. A round robin battle can end in a 1-1 tie. After each breaker faces the other three athletes in their group once, breakers are ranked by number of rounds won, with the top two in each group advancing to the quarterfinals (the first tiebreaker is judges' votes collected, followed by pre-competition seeding).

In the quarterfinals, semifinals, and medal battles, each battle is a three-round one-on-one contest. The semifinal winners face off for gold, while the semifinal losers face each other for bronze.

Nine judges score the battles on five criteria — technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality, which all constitute 20 percent of the total score. They make these judgments on a sliding scale to determine a winner, meaning that they judge each competitor relative to their opponent in each category rather than assigning them raw individual scores. So, for instance, if a judge deems two competitors evenly matched in technique, vocabulary and execution, but the first athlete has much better musicality and slightly worse originality, the 20% available in each category might be split 10/10 for the first three, 16/4 for musicality and 9/11 for originality, with the judge deeming the first athlete the overall winner with 55% of the total score (10+10+10+16+9 / 100). Whichever competitor is deemed the winner by the majority of judges wins the round.

Competitors do not know what music they will be dancing to in advance of the competition. Each round lasts approximately one minute (there is no explicit penalty for going too long or too short, but rounds are typically within 15 seconds of that guideline). When one breaker completes their round, their opponent goes immediately into their set. Judges promptly make their decisions after the conclusion of the set amount of rounds (two in the round robin, three for the rest of the competition).

The breaking competitions will take place at La Concorde Urban Park in the heart of Paris. The public square will be temporarily transformed into a venue for multiple sports, and a space to highlight the cultures of Paris. The park will be a hub for the Summer Games, with areas for visitors to enjoy live DJs, sport demonstrations, dining areas and more.

Along with breaking, La Concorde Urban Park will be home to skateboarding, basketball 3x3 and BMX freestyle. 

Paris's largest public square, the Place de la Concorde, will be transformed into an urban sports playground for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Paris 2024

An important note on breaking names: In breaking, you will often see references to athletes with "B-Boy" or "B-Girl" in front of their names (ex. B-Boy Phil Wizard, B-Girl Logistx). However, while it is accurate to call Phil Wizard a B-Boy and Logistx a B-Girl, some athletes have said that they prefer not to have that moniker included as part of their breaking names, so it is NBC's style to honor that and call them by their breaking names: Phil Wizard, Logistx, Sunny, etc.

When you watch breaking, you might hear some unfamiliar terms, if you haven't watch before. Here's a quick-and-dirty guide:

Power head: A power head is someone who loves to practice and perform mostly power moves in their breaking. Power moves are acrobatic moves that require momentum, speed, endurance, strength, flexibility and control. The breaker is generally supported by their upper body, while the rest of their body creates circular momentum. 

Footwork cat: A footwork cat is someone who loves to practice and perform footwork in their breaking. This describes any movement on the floor with the hands supporting the dancer as much as the feet.

Popping: A continuous flexing of the muscles to the beat. Some moves include arm and body waves that look like an electric current has passed through the body.

Locking: Freezing from a fast movement and "locking" into a certain position, holding it, and then continuing at the same speed as before.

Headspin: In a headstand position, the breaker spins by pushing with their hands.

Heelspin: Breaker puts their weight on one heel and initiates a spin by swinging their leg.

Windmill: Breaker rotates continuously on one shoulder with their feet in the air and legs apart.

Backspin: Breaker balances weight on their upper back and goes into a spin by pushing with their hands or swinging the legs across the body.

Throw down: When the B-Girl or B-Boy hits the floor and starts breaking, they are doing a throw down. 

Set: A set is a breaker's prepared round or combination of moves.

Repeating: When a breaker reuses a move that they've already done during the competition, they are considered to have been "repeating." Twenty percent of a breaker's score is originality, and repeating can negatively impact that score. 

Bite/biter/biting: When a breaker is accused of 'biting' or being a 'biter,' it means that they have either stolen or copied moves/style from another breaker. Similar to "repeating," this can also affect a breaker's originality score.

Crashing: If a breaker 'crashes,' it means they failed an attempted move and fell during or at the end of their attempt. This may be the most common cause of a breaker losing a battle. The best breakers, however, know how to turn a crash into a move and can control the crash enough to continue their flow into something else.

Tops among medal contenders is 17- year-old Dominika Banevic (“Nicka”) of Lithuania, who broke through to win the 2023 world title at age 16. While some of her challengers, such as Ayumi Fukushima (“Ayumi”) of Japan and American Sunny Choi (“Sunny”) didn't start breaking until their early 20s, Nicka started breaking in her living room as a 5-year-old after discovering the sport on YouTube. That early start helped her develop an extremely well-rounded style.

Sunny, the 2019 world silver medalist and 2023 U.S. champion, quit her job as the Director of Global Creative Operations at skincare and makeup company Estee Lauder in January 2023 to focus on breaking full-time. She clinched a spot in the Olympics by winning the 2023 Pan American Games title.

Logan Edra (“Logistx”), 2023 world quarterfinalist, won the Red Bull BC One World Final in 2021 and finished second at the 2023 U.S. Championships. She earned the second and final U.S. women's Olympic spot at the Olympic Qualifier Series, which ended in June. Sunny and Logistx are both outside medal contenders. Logistx, born to Filipino parents in California, was given her breaking name by her father, who said she always needed a logistical plan for everything she did. 

Nicka defeated Ayumi, a 42-year-old Japanese breaking legend, in the final at 2023 Worlds. Ayumi, the 2021 world champion, leads a strong Japanese contingent. Both legs of the Olympic Qualifier Series were Japanese podium sweeps, with Ayumi beating 2022 world champion Ami Yuasa ("Ami") in the Shanghai final and Ami avenging the loss in the Budapest final, ensuring qualification for both as the top two finishers in the series.

Riko Tsuhako ("Riko") finished third in both events and was the only woman who finished top-10 in the series but failed to qualify. Ayumi and Ami are both solid medal contenders with a shot at gold. Ayumi came from humble beginnings in the sport, with her first battle coming as a 21-year-old against an elementary school girl.

Nicka may be challenged further by 2022 world runner-up Liu Qingyi (“671”) of China and 2022 European and Red Bull BC One champion India Sardjoe (“India”) of the Netherlands. 

French teenager Sya Dembele (“Syssy”) finished third at 2023 Worlds, and she has also emerged as a medal contender for the host nation.

Victor Montalvo (“Victor”) is considered by many to be the most successful competitor in the sport's history, and he is the gold medal favorite. His 2023 world title (his second in three years) clinched his spot in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Victor got his start in the sport at age 6, following in the footsteps of his father, who was a B-Boy in Mexico. Victor's father was also a member of a death metal band in Mexico before he ultimately moved to the U.S. for better opportunities to raise a family.

Jeffrey Louis (“Jeffro”), who lost to Victor in the 2022 World Games final, is the second U.S. man to qualify for breaking and is a medal contender. He enters Paris ranked No. 4 in the World DanceSport Federation rankings.

Philip Kim (“Phil Wizard”) defeated Shigeyuki Nakarai (“Shigekix”) to win the 2022 world title, and he finished second to Victor at 2023 Worlds. Phil Wizard, who qualified for the Games with his 2023 Pan American Games title, is expected to be Victor’s top challenger for gold. Shigekix, a bronze medalist at the 2018 Youth Olympics, 2022 World Games, and 2023 World Championships, is close behind.

Danis Civil (“Dany Dann”), 2022 European champion, is the top medal hope for the French. Dany Dann left his home country of French Guiana (in South America) in 2008 to further his breaking career in Paris. He married a B-Girl, Marion, and they worked as nurses in a hospital together before he began focusing on breaking full-time in the lead-up to the Games.

Another potential medal contender is 2021 Red Bull BC One World Final champion Amir Zakirov ("Amir") of Kazakhstan.