Breaking

With the Olympics rapidly approaching, they’ve started advertising it in the US by airing these little featurettes highlighting various US competitors.  And I caught one the other day featuring someone who competes in “breaking”.  What the heck is “breaking” you may be asking yourself?  Well, I kind of knew because I heard about this a few years ago, but I’m still kind of sad that it was confirmed.  Yes, breakdancing is an official Olympic sport.  What an absolute joke.  Simply ridiculous.  Especially when you think of all the popular and international sports that are not in the Olympics.  How do you compete in breakdancing?  How many spins you can do on your head in one minute?!  This is probably another one of those sports that are subjectively judged – something that I am really starting to disagree with.  The Olympics should stick to sports that are objectively measured – whether by time, by distance, by a score, by a weight lifted, etc.  The winner of breakdancing can only, presumably, be decided upon by a judge.  By god knows what criteria.  Sure, it’s not the only sport like this – for example, a lot of the gymnastics events suffer from a similar issue.  But breakdancing seems particularly egregious, and seemingly a rather pathetic attempt to appeal to a younger and more “urban” demographic.