The Paris Olympics are under way and the world is watching. Since it only comes around every 4 years, it’s safe to say, people get excited. With the downfall of cable, many are watching via streaming services, clips on Youtube and other outlets. Even still there are a lot of reasons to watch this year. There is a new sport debuting this year, Breaking. Known on the streets as break dancing, this new Olympic sport will see 16b men and 16 women compete one on one in 3 round battles. Each round the breakers will improvise a combination of dance moves and aerobatic moves for a minute each, over a track a DJ chooses. There are 3 types of moves: Top Rock- standing moves, Down Rock: floor moves, & Freezes: full stops in difficult positions. These games will be held August 9th-10th.
The other newest Olympic sports are Climbing, Skateboarding and Surfing. The surfing competitors will be 10,000 miles away in Teahup’o Tahiti. This will be the furthest distance between Olympic venues since the 1956 games in Malborne, Australia. Equestrian events took place in Sweden that year due to a quarantine in Australia. Teahup’o is a French Polynesian territory and falls under French jurisdiction.
The Women’s Gymnastics Olympic team has won the gold! This is team USA’s 4th Gold in Gymnastics. I remember well, the first Gold in 1996. I was a young girl obsessed with gymnastics and had the Official Olympic Gold Metal Gymnastic Barbie. Kept in its box for years. I wasn’t able to play with her spinning, cartwheeling body until I was an adult after some flooding caused the box to deteriorate(along with all 5 Spice Girls Dolls in the box) But little girls have Simone Biles and the rest of this years team to look up to. Simone herself has been breaking records and creating new moves, never before seen. There are 5 skills across floor, beam, and vault events. The craziest thing I saw was her launching herself 12 feet in the air while doing a triple twisting double tuck, during her floor routine. Not only impressive but unimaginable for someone that stands 4’8″.
Cheers to TEAM USA and every competitor that has worked their tail off to get where they are. Enjoy the games.
