For some sports, picking the winner is simple: It's the athlete who crosses the finish line first, or the side that scores the most goals. But for the new Olympic sport of breaking (if you want to be cool, don't call it breakdancing), the criteria aren't quite that straightforward. How do you judge an event whose core values are dopeness, freshness, and breaking the rules? That was the challenge for Storm and Renegade, two legendary b-boys who set out to create a fair and objective scoring system for a dance they say is more of an art than a sport. Over the years, their journey to define the soul of breaking led them to meetings with Olympics bigwigs, debates over the science of dopeness, and a battle with a question many sports — from figure skating to gymnastics — have tried to answer: Can art and sport coexist? This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jenny Lawton. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez with help from James Willets and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer. Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This message comes from Whole Foods Market.
Get back to school ready at their best in class event packed with sales on items like organic grapes and honey crisp apples.
Start the morning with organic frozen waffles and better than cage free eggs.
Make whole foods market your back to school destination.
Hey, a heads up to our listeners.
In today's episode, there's going to be some vulgar language.
This is planet money from nPrdez.
This is the final round, y'all.
Let the battle begin.
So there was this epic breakdancing battle that went down in 2008.
It is the finals of the Red Bull championships.
Starts off with this b boy from Japan called Taisuke.
Taisuke is throwing down this really fancy footwork.
It looks like he's dancing on the air.
So now he's doing.
He's doing a little bit of top rock.
Nice.
Nice on the music.
This is Niels Rubitsky.
He's this legendary b boy who goes by the name of storm.