Breakdancing at the Olympic Games (2024)

Breakdancing at the Olympic Games (2024)

AP African American Studies Guide

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Topic 4.17

A Photograph of Breakdancing at the Olympic Games (2024)

Syssy (Sya Dembélé), a young Black woman, competing in the Olympic games, with the Paris 2024 logo in the background. She is wearing the French breakdancing uniform (blue skullcap, blue shirt, white pants, blue socks, and black and white Adidas Samba sneakers). She is in a Thomas flare (hands on the ground, legs flared upward).


Source: “Syssy of Team France competes during the B-Girls Round Robin - Group B on day fourteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Place de la Concorde on August 09, 2024, in Paris, France.” (Photo by Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Syssy (born Sya Dembélé) represented France in breakdancing (breaking) at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where she placed seventh. Syssy’s father was a griot in Burkina Faso, and her mother is a choreographer. Syssy is seen here performing a “Thomas flare,” so named after American gymnast Kurt Thomas’s pommel horse routine (as seen on the USA Gymnastics YouTube channel).