You can also listen to the interview in the audio version.
At the current Olympic Games, a completely new discipline awaits the prime minister. In the metropolis on the Seine, 16 men (b-boys) and 16 women (b-girls) will compete in breaking.
The best b-boy and b-girl from the Czech Republic will be missing among them. They devoted a lot of time and effort to the pursuit of their dream, but they did not pass the qualification sieve.
Breaking in Paris
- Breaking will take place on August 9 and 10 at the Place de la Concorde.
- A total of 16 b-boys and 16 b-girls will face each other one by one.
- The athletes will be divided into four groups of four, with the top two from each group advancing to the quarter-finals, followed by the semi-finals and medal fights.
- Judges rate breakers in five categories – musicianship, inventory, originality, technique and execution, each accounting for 20 percent of the score.
- The contestants will give their best performances and improvise to the beats of the DJ playing.
“I was lucky that when I started at Opatow Flavors, our school grew with us. We were the first group. We had a gym and sometimes we went outside or on the subway to train,” says Marek Mensa, who in the last three years has placed between the TOP 32 and 64 in the qualifications several times.
Monika Kadlubcová, who has been among the top 15 to 50 at the world championships several times since 2021, was brought to breakdancing by chance – as a 14-year-old she wanted to sign up for modern dance at the Jablunkov Children’s and Youth Center. “They told me that they are full and that breaking is something similar. That’s how I started,” she recalls. “I have always been goal-oriented and often imagined that I would fight at the international level. So, in a certain way, I manifested it and also worked hard.”
In an interview for Seznam Zprávy, the dancers explain what breakdance means and its inclusion in the program of the Olympic Games.
Breaking in Paris
- Breaking will take place on August 9 and 10 at the Place de la Concorde.
- A total of 16 b-boys and 16 b-girls will face each other one by one.
- The athletes will be divided into four groups of four, with the top two from each group advancing to the quarter-finals, followed by the semi-finals and medal fights.
- Judges rate breakers in five categories – musicianship, inventory, originality, technique and execution, each accounting for 20 percent of the score.
- The contestants will give their best performances and improvise to the beats of the DJ playing.
How would you describe breakdancing?
Monika Kadlubcová (MK): As an artistic expression of the body that blends into the athletic world.
Marek Mensa (MM): I personally perceive breakdancing as an art that connects movement, music and creativity. But an athletic approach is also important, because it is physically demanding if you want to be good at it.
At the Olympic Games, the discipline is called breaking, so the essential part of the word, namely “dance” -dance, has been dropped from the name. Considering that we are experiencing the premiere of breaking at the Olympics, there is often a debate as to whether it is more of a sport or a dance. How do you perceive it?
MK: Even though I trained and lived as an athlete, I still saw breaking as a dance. As a person, I’m more of an artist than an athlete.
MM: It is a dance that also requires sport.
Unlike other Olympic disciplines, breaking is quite specific. It’s not just about being the fastest or the most accurate. One’s own creativity or individuality is also important. What does preparation even look like?
MK: It is very individual. As I live in Denmark, I trained with different dancers who had the same goals. We did different fitness training and “rounds”, which means we imitated the whole process of the battle and danced against each other in a time slot like in competitions. I also combined it with fitness.
MM: It is a diverse discipline and each dancer can choose what they will focus on. Some dance more and do less physically demanding elements, others have it the other way around and do tricks that are closer to gymnastics. Of course, the best can combine everything.
The preparation thus has two levels. The first is physics, which is all about hard work. Then there is creativity. Sure, you have to train the basic elements that you build on afterwards, but that’s not all. You have basic pillars to bounce off of and create something of your own, which I think is an important aspect. In dancing, it is also essential to be able to connect with the music and relax.
However, not everyone is excited about the inclusion of breaking in the Olympic program. There is concern that breakdancing will lose its authenticity, sell out to the business world, and so on. A similar debate took place, for example, around skateboarding. Do you think breakdancing belongs in the Olympics?
MK: It gave people more options and showed the dancers other directions. I think one has to develop and accept new challenges. Everything has its positive and negative sides and one has to choose what to take from it. Breaking became more popular and I met people who didn’t even know that there was a breaking community and that it was still dancing.
MM: I’m not the one to decide that. But when that happens, there are many opportunities for dancers from all over the world, which I perceive positively.
As breakdancing gets more attention, it will be seen by many more people, a big platform will be created and the dancers will be able to do it to the fullest. It was similar to skateboarding, when suddenly a lot of skaters have their own sponsors and are dedicated only to that. The Olympic Games can be a driving force as well as an imaginary pinnacle.
But it also has negative aspects. The breakdance scene, for example, is afraid that the realization of breaking at the Olympics will be taken care of by people who are not so much interested in culture, but rather in the fun of it.
First time in Paris
The organizers of the Olympic Games hope that it will attract millions of viewers to the television screens. Sixteen male and female dancers will present themselves in the breaking discipline for the first time at the beginning of August.
You are the best in the Czech Republic, you had a chance to establish yourself among the world’s best and strive for a place at the Olympics in Paris. In the end, you didn’t make it, but I’m curious as to what your journey was like.
MK: It started for me in 2021, when I was the only Czech woman to qualify for the TOP 16 at the European Championships in Sochi, Russia. This was followed by various qualifications around Europe. For example, in Paris at the World Championships, I placed in the TOP 32. We also traveled to Hong Kong for the qualification, for example.
MM: As a representative of the Czech Republic, I have been to about six events around the world, including Spain and Hong Kong. I didn’t manage to advance to the OQS (Olympic Qualifier Series, editor’s note), but I was close. The competition was huge.
Getting to the Olympics was important to me, but on the other hand, I never bet everything on it. I have already oriented myself in several directions. I performed abroad with my brother, who is also a dancer, and worked on commercial dance projects.
Olympics 2024 in Paris
What kind of support did you receive from the Czech Dance Sports Association, under which breakdance falls?
MK: From the beginning we had to pay for the trip ourselves. After that, thanks to my placement, I received an amount that covered part of the ticket. The rest of the team got nothing. For the qualification to Hong Kong, we received support for the plane ticket, but I had to pay for the accommodation myself. There was no gym, no trainers and no physio.
MM: I paid my own way to the first three events to compete for a spot at the Olympics. Subsequently, the Czech Dance Sports Association began to cover my costs. If I had to express it as a percentage, I received between twenty and thirty percent of support from ČSTS.
I am grateful for the contribution I received, but it could have been much better. I know that in Denmark or Norway, for example, breakdancers have a completely different background. They have masseurs or physical therapists who take care of them before the battle or they have their own clothes. The Chinese had maybe twenty people around them, including coaches or mentors.
(Some nations) simply take it more seriously. This is not the case with us.
Do you feel that if you had more support and better facilities, you would have placed better?
MK: Since qualifying in Hong Kong, I haven’t danced in over six months. I went through burnout because I have a full-time job as a graphic designer and I’ve been training five times a week for the last four years. I got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and I hate dancing.
If I had more support in this process and could focus only on dancing, the results would definitely be completely different. The support of a mental coach would also make a big difference.
MM: These factors will definitely show up, even in the mental setting. When you see that you have people around you who take care of the other things, I can imagine that it can have an effect.
But when I look at the final sixteen, the teams of those competitors have everything worked out from A to Z. Everyone knows what to do. It’s about teamwork.
Breakdancers and support
Czech b-boys and b-girls are brought together by the organization Czech Breaking (CBA), which falls under the Czech Dance Sports Association (ČSTS). It covers, among other things, popular standard and Latin American dances in the Czech Republic.
Robert Kysela from CBA admitted to Seznam Právy that the support for the two Czech representatives was small. However, he expressed his gratitude for the fact that “there was some financial support” for at least a couple of representatives from the ČSTS side.
He pointed out at the same time that while ČSTS provided help, none came from the Czech Olympic Committee (ČOV) and the National Sports Agency. “The support of breakdance is not limited to ČSTS. He had to share his regular budget, which he has for other sports, with us. He did not receive anything else from the state,” he added.
ČSTS President Rostislav Filgas stated in a statement for Seznam Zprávy that the union “provides equal support for all its representatives and this support corresponds to financial, personnel and organizational possibilities”. For context: the union on its website statesthat for the year 2024 it expects total revenues of 17.5 million crowns in its budget, almost half of which is subsidies. A total of 2.4 million crowns has been reserved for support and travel representation, and another 400,000 for supporting athletes.
Barbora Žehanová, director of communications at the WWTP, then told Seznam Zprávám that they give financial support to Olympic sports that succeed in the qualification in retrospect. “The rules are set in such a way that we cannot provide finance in advance, but only on the basis of success in the qualification. However, some associations requested pre-financing, saying that in case of unsuccessful qualification, they would return the financial amount. It is valid that the preparation and qualification for the Olympic Games are fully under the responsibility of the sports associations,” she explained.
