Taiwanese break dancer Sun Chen (孫振) on Sunday secured his place as Taiwan’s first B-boy to compete in Olympic breakdancing after taking part in the second leg of the discipline’s qualifier series in Budapest, Hungary.
With breakdancing making its debut as an event at the quadrennial summer Olympics, a two-part Olympic Qualifier Series was held in Shanghai, China, and Budapest to finalize the competitors in four “urban sports” disciplines announced by the International Olympic Committee
The other three events were BMX freestyle, skateboarding and sport climbing, all of which debuted at the Olympics after 2000.
Photo courtesy of Red Bull
After a two-year selection process and competitive events, 40 B-boys (male break dancers) and 40 B-girls (female break dancers) were chosen to compete against each other from May 16 to May 19 in Shanghai, followed by the most recent dance-off from Thursday last week to Sunday in Budapest, to vie for a chance to compete in the inaugural breakdancing event at the Olympics.
Breakers placing in the top seven from the combined rankings in Shanghai and Budapest qualified to compete in Paris next month.
Taiwan’s Sun, better known as “B-boy Quake,” placed 10th overall.
He first placed seventh when competing with a leg injury last month in Shanghai, taking painkillers to help dance through the pain.
However, after reaching the quarter-finals, Sun was outdanced by China’s Qi Xiangyu (亓祥宇).
In Budapest, after dancing his way into the round-of-16, Sun on Sunday competed against other B-boys from the US, the Netherlands and Ukraine, but was unable to make it into the quarter-finals and placed 15th.
With a combined score of 60 out of 100, Sun took 10th place, securing his qualification for Paris.
The National Olympic Committees placed a limit of two dancers from each country in the qualifiers, which ensured Sun’s inclusion after Japan and the US exceeded their quota.
Sun released a statement through his agency saying he is honored to represent Taiwan next month, adding that he would do his best to do justice to his dream of competing at the Olympics.
Born on Sept. 21, 1999 — the day Taiwan was hit by a major earthquake measuring magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale which caused widespread destruction and killed 2,456 people while injuring 10,718 — the character of Sun’s first name means “vibrate” in Mandarin. His English nickname is Quake.
Sun’s coach Su Chih-peng (蘇志鵬) said Quake was under a lot of pressure before Budapest as he had just recovered from his leg injury.
Su added that after Sun’s qualification, he hoped the nation would begin to value breakdancing as a sport and do more to cultivate it.
“There are many countries in the world, and yet Taiwan was able to make it to the Olympics,” he said.
“The achievement was not easy, but it also allows the world to see Taiwan’s breaking and the sport could be further cultivated, so one day maybe more people can represent Taiwan,” he added.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS