They can skate, but can they skateboard?

From breakdancing to rock climbing, we break down Russia's prospects in the newest official Olympic sports

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will include four new events: breakdancing, skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing. The International Olympic Committee announced that the new additions would support IOC plans for the expansion of the games and boost connections with “the younger generation.” Meduza asked sports journalist Anton Pilyasov to explain the merits of these new Olympic sports and analyze Russia’s chances at a medal in each.

Breakdancing

Despite the widespread belief that breakdancing “died out” in the early 2000s, this 30-year-old sport is still alive and growing. Breakdancing contests are essentially like bodily rap battles between two dancers. There are no templates or programs here, only pure improvisation inspired by the DJ’s beats. Whoever gets the most votes from the judges is named the winner, and judges evaluate each performance based on a detailed rubric. Yes, it’s all very serious.

Breakdancing made it into the Olympics for two reasons. First, it’s very popular with young people (an extremely important point for the IOC), and it’s no less popular in France. The IOC tested out the sport successfully during the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires: the crowds were large, and the athletes were satisfied.

Russia’s prospects are excellent. The first ever Youth Olympic gold medal in breakdancing was awarded in 2018 to Russian athlete Sergey Chernyshev, who performs under the stage name Bumblebee. Russians have done well in other international breakdancing competitions as well.

Skateboarding

This competition will debut even earlier than 2024 — skateboarding will feature in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The reasons why are obvious: the youth factor and widespread popularity. Almost a billion people skateboard in the U.S. alone — at one point, there were even more skateboarders than basketball players in that country. The idea of including skateboarding in the Olympics has also won support from Tony Hawk himself.

In the Olympics, skateboarders will compete in two disciplines: Street and Park. In the former, athletes will skate on a course that imitates a real street, including stairs, benches, handrails, and curbs. The Park event will take place on what is essentially a large skate park complete with drops, ramps, pyramids, and other obstacles. The objective in each event is identical: do your tricks as fast as possible. The judges will grade athletes on speed, execution, and difficulty.

Russia’s prospects are good. World Champion Max Kruglov, who is ranked as one of the top skateboarders internationally, is hoping to medal in the Olympics as soon as 2020.

Surfing

Like skateboarding, this sport will debut in the 2020 Games. It might be the most unpredictable discipline in the modern history of the Olympics. Any surfer’s performance depends directly on the height and complexity of the waves (the competition will take place in natural waters), and there’s no predicting how nature might behave.

Four athletes will start at the same time. They’ll drift through the water on their boards until a wave comes along. Whoever is closest to the peak at that moment has the right to surf that wave, and they will be held responsible if they miss their moment. Anyone who interferes with a fellow competitor will be penalized. On average, each surfer will take on 10 waves in a single 20- to 25-minute round. Judges will then evaluate their speed, the difficulty of their tricks, and the complexity of the wave. Surfers can try to ride more waves in a given round, but there are benefits to passing them by: depending on an athlete’s tactics, they may prefer to choose the most challenging waves and use those opportunities to pull out their best tricks.

Russia’s prospects are nonexistent. It’s the Americans and Australians who rule the competitive surfing world, definitely not the Russians. That’s because there are almost no good locations in Russia for surfers to train.

Sport climbing

Rock climbing has been pushing its way into the Olympics since 2007. It’s the only one among the Games’ new sports where judges can’t decide a thing: only speed matters here. The gold medal in climbing will go to the athlete who earns the most points in three disciplines.

The first is speed climbing. Here, two athletes (both wearing ropes and harnesses) will simultaneously climb walls 15 meters (almost 50 feet) high using holds attached to the walls. Whoever gets to the top fastest will be declared the winner. The second discipline is bouldering, where climbers have to reach as many ledges as possible in four minutes. The walls involved are only a few meters high, but the athletes won’t have the benefit of harnesses or ropes. Falls will not be penalized, and climbers can restart the route as many times as they want until their time runs out. The third discipline is lead climbing. In six minutes, athletes will have to climb as high as they can on a wall while moving their safety equipment with them. The winner will be whoever climbs the highest.

Russia’s prospects are excellent. Russia hosts the highest number of rock climbing competitions in the world, and Russian athletes have won 15 gold medals in the sport’s world championships.

Story by Anton Pilyasov ofSports.ru

Translation by Hilah Kohen

Cover photo: Matthew Khight / AFP / Scanpix / LETA