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I eventually found her original performances, and frankly she is shown in memes to be much worse than she actually was.
IMO she failed for two reasons:
- she thought that instead of repeating the known moves she creates her own, trying to use them to tell some kind of story. Judges did not find appreciation for that
- I think she was the oldest from all contestants (she is 36 and youngest contestants was 16, so less than half her age), so no way she could make things as dynamic as they did and her moves were slower
Saying the words "Break dancing" and "she creates her own moves [as why she failed]", to me, proves there's zero need for that to be an Olympic sport.
I've always kind of detested 'judged' sports, not the sports themselves but the idea of judging creative expression on a scale. Like, "We, the panel, have decreed that your moves were not funky fresh. Pop and lock your way to the locker room please."
I approve of it only as long as they use those words precisely.
That isn't really how the judging worked though. First they had a huge panel of judges - 9 of them. And they judge them on 5 criteria: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality. It is qualitative, but it's a comparative rating system with actual guidelines - so they each simply have to decide who did each thing better:
Maintaining physiological control while focusing on athleticism, form and spatial awareness.
The range of moves that display variation and the quantity of moves, ideally with minimal repetition.
The ability to land and perform moves smoothly, without falls or slips and while maintaining consistency and flow.
The ability to stay on beat, syncing movements to the rhythm of the music.
The capacity for improvisation, creativity and maintaining spontaneity with style and personality.
I don't think breaking necessarily needs to be in the olympics, but we're past the point of only allowing sports (looking at you, dressage) and we do have other artistic events (rhythmic gymanstics and synchro swimming). And, the scoring system for breaking was reasonable and able to determine valid winners.
I was talking to my bud about the scoring system and how much of a sham it was she didn't get at least a few for originality. Literally nobody else did some of the moves she did in the competition. I'm not saying they were good or bad but they sure as fuck were original.
I sorta laughed when I heard she had a PhD in breakdancing before seeing the performance and ridiculed her after but she manages to do what nobody else has done to this degree and that is to push breakdancing forward in the human conscience. So maybe she doesn't deserve to be ridiculed for that PhD.
They could judge the winner by crowd decibel level instead.
While a simple solution for a popularity contest, it has great drawbacks when looking for techique comparison. Someone's family may be bigger or louder than others, some people may have more fans in the audience, who can afford to attend will skew the vote, being an international event would mean that it's likely the home team has the advantage as people from the host country have a greater opportunity to attend, some event crowds may be determined by time of day or by public transportation, and the audience may not see the whole (5 hour breakdancing) event and certainly won't see the performers as well/as close as the judges would. Additionally the audience has so many new viewers during the Olympics that don't know how hard certain moves/sequence of moves are while some easy flashy moves will wow a crowd every single time. None of those things show particularly compelling qualification to determine how technically good the performer/performance is.
Yeah judges and the MC making live commentary like "Woo girl you got the moves!" And no actual rating system already makes it a popularity contest and its not like there is a wide expansive network of smaller competitions to find the actual best performers.
It's not a sport even though it could be. It's an industry wanting representation so it can feel important.
I found her performances and to me it was absolutely not the moves that let her down. It was a complete lack of rhythm and flow.
They were bad.
I have already invested more than I would into finding the performance (i.e. 5 mins), but all I find are videos talking about it. Do you have a link?
Wow, you are not wrong. It's like it's been fucking scrubbed from the internet. I may actually have to look for a torrent.
If you find it, please update this comment chain. I too am looking to see it but too lazy to search for longer than 5 mins.
It depends where you are if you are in Europe then it might be on YouTube on Eurosport channel.
In US www.nbcolympics.com you get 30 minutes. Go to explore sports and select "breaking". If you go to schedule on olympics.com you can find the points where she performed.