Anthony Gharib, ESPNJul 12, 2024, 01:48 PM ET
The 2024 Paris Games include a wide array of traditional Olympic sports, but ones that made their debuts recently could draw attention.
These are four of the non-traditional sports that will be contested at the Paris Games: skateboarding, sport climbing, surfing and breaking.
Breaking, also known as break dancing, is making its Olympic debut. Skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing all first appeared at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Here's everything you need to know about each sport (excluding surfing).
Breaking
When will breaking take place at the 2024 Olympics?
The girls competition will begin and conclude on August 9, while the boys competition will begin and conclude on August 10.
Where will breaking take place?
La Concorde, which is a temporary transformation of the iconic public square Place de la Concorde. Skateboarding, cycling BMX freestyle and 3x3 basketball will also be held here.
What are the rules of breaking?
Breaking includes two events -- one for 16 B-Boys and the other for 16 B-Girls. Each group will compete in solo battles. Athletes will be judged by their dance moves, which are improvised to the beat of the DJ's tracks.
How is breaking judged?
Judges will use five criteria to pick a winner -- vocabulary, technique, execution, originality and musicality. Vocabulary refers to the series of moves a contestant attempts, while technique and execution are more about how those moves are completed.
Technique refers to the athleticism, body control and how the athlete uses the stage. Execution is about the smoothness and sharpness of moves -- pauses, crashes, slips and falls are all penalized.
Contestants will be rewarded for the originality of their moves and reactions to the dance battle. Musicality follows a similar style of scoring, looking at how well athletes understand the music's rhythm and their ability to freestyle to it.
Skateboarding
When will skateboarding take place at the 2024 Olympics?
The men's street prelims and finals will be on July 27, while the women's street prelims and finals will be on July 28. The women's park prelims and finals will be on August 6, while the men's park prelims and finals will be on August 7.
There are 22 athletes in each competition, marking 88 in total.
Where will skateboarding take place?
La Concorde will host the event.
The street competitions take place on a "street-like" course that includes stairs, handrails and benches, meant to resemble the environments where skateboarding originated. The park competitions will be on a course that combines bowls and bends.
What are the rules of skateboarding?
Speed, difficulty and range of moves are all basis of judgment in the street and park competitions. However, each one has its own specific format.
The street competition includes two phases with eight advancing from the preliminary to the final round. Skaters will have two 45-second runs with the best of two counted for the next round. They will also have an individual portion with five attempts to land a trick.
In the trick phase, the two best tricks will be counted toward the final score, while only the highest score of the run phase counts.
In the park competition, skaters have two 45-second runs with the ability to perform as many tricks as possible.
They will be judged on five criteria, according to the World Skate rulebook: Repetition, flow and consistency, use of the course, quality of execution and difficulty and variety of tricks performed.
During the run and trick portion, scores are awarded from 0-100 with the highest one being part of the skater's overall score. However, each of the best two tricks will also be given a score of 0-100, making a final score of between 0-300.
This is a change from Tokyo where scores were awarded from 0-10 and only accounted for the highest score between run and trick, not both.
Who medaled in skateboarding at the 2020 Summer Olympics?
Men's park: Keegan Palmer (Gold), Pedro Barros (Silver), Cory Juneau (Bronze)
Men's street: Yuto Horigome (Gold), Kelvin Hoefler (Silver), Jagger Eaton (Bronze)
Women's park: Sakura Yosozumi (Gold), Cocona Hiraki (Silver), Sky Brown (Bronze)
Women's street: Momiji Nishiya (Gold), Rayssa Leal (Silver), Funa Nakayama (Bronze)
Sport climbing
When will sport climbing take place at the 2024 Olympics?
The men's and women's competitions begin on August 5 and conclude on August 10.
Where will sport climbing take place?
Le Bourget sport climbing venue, which was built specifically for the Paris games, will host sport climbing.
What are the rules of sport climbing?
There are three formats to sport climbing: bouldering, speed and lead.
In bouldering, athletes have limited time to climb 4.5m high walls without ropes in the fewest attempts possible. Speed is a one-on-one elimination round race against the clock. In the lead event, athletes are tasked with climbing as high as possible on a wall over 15m high in 6 minutes.
In Tokyo 2020, final scores of each athlete reflected the combined scores of the three competitions. However, in Paris 2024, two competitions will crown their own winner -- one will be a combination of the boulder and lead events, while the other will be just the speed one.
Who medaled in sport climbing at the 2020 Tokyo Games?
Men's combined: Alberto Gines Lopez (Gold), Jakob Schubert (Bronze)
Women's combined: Janja Garnbret (Gold), Miho Nonaka (Silver), Akiyo Noguchi (Bronze)
