Hangzhou Asian Games | Breakdance Forward: Looking Forward to Paris Chinese Team Striving to Win the "Asian Dance King"
Hangzhou, September 20th (Xinhua) - The breakdancing event of the Hangzhou Asian Games will take place from October 6th to 7th at the Gongshu Canal Sports Park Gymnasium. The competition will feature two events, men's and women's, resulting in two gold medals. The Chinese team will send four athletes, including Liu Qingyi and Shang Xiaoyu, to compete with the goal of "women winning gold and men competing for medals", striving to secure a spot in the Paris Olympics.
The picture shows Liu Qingyi. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Han
In December 2020, the International Olympic Committee agreed to add breakdancing as a competition event for the 2024 Paris Olympics. In the same year, the Olympic Council of Asia announced that breakdancing became an official competition event at the Asian Games. With the entry into the Olympics and Asia, breakdancing and its popular culture have injected new vitality into competitive sports. This highly sensory and impactful event is attracting more and more people's attention.
The Chinese team sent two men and two women to compete in the Asian Games. The women's team sent Liu Qingyi and Zeng Yingying, while the men's team sent Shang Xiaoyu and Qi Xiangyu. The average age of the team is less than 23 years old.
On the women's side, Liu Qingyi, born in 2005, is a popular contender to win the championship in this event. She won two championships in this year's Olympic points race at Kitakyushu in Japan and Montpellier in France, and won a silver medal at last year's World Championships in South Korea. This little girl, who always wears a ponytail, has achieved excellent results in international competitions in the past two years with her strong stage appeal and powerful routine skills, and has rapidly grown into an indispensable presence in the world of breakdancing; In addition, 30-year-old Zeng Yingying is also on the list of the Asian Games. Her performance focuses on the combination of dance and music, with a strong emphasis on narrative. However, based on her current international competition results, she still needs to give it a try to win medals at the Asian Games.
The picture shows Zeng Yingying. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xiao Yazhuo
Although Chinese men's breakdancing is not in the top group worldwide, it still has the strength to win medals in Asia. Shang Xiaoyu, who made it to the men's quarterfinals at the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympics, won the runner up in the Asian Championships in July this year, winning the first medal for the Chinese team in the breakdancing Asian Championships; Qi Xiangyu, who is 18 years old, won the internationally renowned Breakdance Outbreak championship in July this year. With a strong martial arts background, he often adds some Chinese martial arts elements to his routine movements. His performance at this Asian Games is worth looking forward to.
The picture shows Qi Xiangyu. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Jiang Han
Since the first World Breakdance Championships in 2019, the women's gold medal has always been in the hands of the Japanese team. Ayumi Tang and Ayumi Fukushima have won three World Championships for the Japanese team, both of whom are world-class in strength. How Liu Qingyi stood out in the Japanese team group battle this time will become a major highlight of the competition. On the men's side, this year's gold medalist at the Asian Championships, South Korean athlete Kim Hyun woo, as well as the runner up at the 2022 World Championships and Japanese athlete Shigeki Hani, all have the ability to compete for gold medals. Currently, it seems that achieving the medal winning goal for the Chinese team is not an easy task.
For the newly established Chinese breakdancing national team in January this year, they will face two crucial "big exams" in the second half of the year. The consecutive Belgian World Championships and Hangzhou Asian Games are both "Olympic Direct Tournaments", and the champion can directly get a ticket to the Paris Olympics. "Chinese athletes, especially female athletes, aim to secure a direct spot in these two competitions," said Yin Guochen, President of the China Sports Dance Federation.
At present, the Chinese team is preparing overseas and will compete in the World Championships in Belgium from September 23rd to 24th. The four team members participating in the Asian Games will then go to Hangzhou to prepare. The biggest challenge for the team members will be how to quickly adjust and switch between the two top-level competitions.
