Breakdancing B-Girl sets sights on Paris Olympics

Eight years ago, when she performed a few breakdancing routine in a square in China’s northwestern city of Xi’an, Zeng Yingying never expected that she might end up representing her country at the Olympic Games.

“I am so excited,” said Zeng, 27, whose breaking name is Yingzi. “I feel that I can dream bigger now. There is a higher bar up there. I hope to enter the national team and win honor for China in Paris.”

After an International Olympic Committee vote on December 7, it was announced that breakdancing will feature at the 2024 Games, giving breakdancers like Zeng — also known as B-Boys and B-Girls — the chance to win an Olympic gold medal.

Zeng has been a sports lover since childhood. At 14, she was selected by an athletics coach from Guangzhou, and after a one-year stint training for the heptathlon, she returned home to study at high school. Thanks to her performances in the triple jump and 100-meter hurdles, she was admitted to Ningbo University in east China’s Zhejiang Province.

During the summer before she went to college, a friend introduced street dancing to Zeng, who was immediately captivated. “It is cool,” Zeng said. “Compared with breakdancing, track and field is a little boring.”

With the help of the breakdancing association at Ningbo University, Zeng improved very quickly, and by 2015 she had won titles in several competitions organized by local clubs. But until the World Breaking Championships in 2019, she was still unknown to most people in China.

At the 2019 event in Nanjing, Zeng was the only Chinese dancer to enter the knockout stage, finishing fourth.

That was the best result that Chinese breakdancers had achieved on the world stage. Zeng went on to become the only Chinese dancer to compete at the World Urban Games held in Budapest, Hungary, where she was eliminated in the 16th round.

Her parents had often asked her to do a “normal” job, like being a sports teacher or trainer, but Zeng was unwilling to give up her passion.

“After achieving a good result at last year’s world championships, they started to be supportive,” Zeng said. “Now that it has become an official Olympic sport, they finally believe that a breakdancer can have a bright future.”