A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Breaking, also known as breakdancing, makes its Olympic debut as a sport tomorrow. Among the competitors there are three Ukrainians who dream of making their country proud as Russia's war there drags on. NPR's Hanna Palamarenko met them while they were training in Warsaw.
HANNA PALAMARENKO, BYLINE: Three Ukrainian breakers are practicing dance and acrobatic moves. Twenty-nine-year-old Kateryna Pavlenko is one of them.
KATERYNA PAVLENKO: I started as a teenager, and I just had pure love and excitement. And it was kind of like a protest, for me, to, you know, express myself, do something anti-girly, be a badass - something outrageous.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PALAMARENKO: Pavlenko is from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, the self-declared capital of Ukrainian hip-hop. She moved to the U.S., her sports birthplace, in 2021 - on her feet all day working as a waitress and then training on them after work. After Russia invaded Ukraine the next year, she decided excelling at her sport was the best way to help her homeland.
PAVLENKO: Whatever it takes me to get what I want, I will just do it. And I go there, and I place pretty high.
PALAMARENKO: But to win, she and the others will face off before judges who evaluate breakers on five criteria, including originality, technique and moves. As is the case in every breaking battle or competition, the athletes won't know the music in advance, so improvising is key.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PALAMARENKO: Watching the practice is Georgiy Matyukhin, the team's manager, a former breaker himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOMFUNK MC SONG, "FREESTYLER")
GEORGIY MATYUKHIN: This track's created Ukrainian breaking, I think.
PALAMARENKO: He plays a song that still gives him goose bumps called "Freestyler." Ukrainians learned about breaking in Soviet times through smuggled tapes, watching videos of American breakers known as B-boys and B-girls. And by the 2000s, Ukrainians joined international competitions, showing off their own high-kicking, gravity-defying moves from folk dances.
MATYUKHIN: Our investment - this is our national dance - hopak and povzunets - really inspire U.S. B-boys in the '80s. So they created footwork.
(SOUNDBITE OF FEET STOMPING)
PALAMARENKO: Oleh Kuznetsov, or B-boy Kuzya, practices some of those moves. For him, representing Ukraine at the Olympics is a great honor.
OLEH KUZNETSOV: I want to show that we have nice, big and shiny soul, you know? And I just represent my country and culture.
PALAMARENKO: At the Olympics, Ukrainian athletes will compete in groups of 16 women and 16 men in a battle format, one against another, until a victor emerges. It will be a challenge. Powerhouses like South Africa, France, Japan and, of course, the United States, will be joining battle. But B-girl Kate, or Kateryna Pavlenko, says just getting to the Olympics is a win.
PAVLENKO: My style is more about music, about freestyle, about taking the moment - risking it. I think shining is more important than winning.
PALAMARENKO: With her performance, Pavlenko wants to return the world's attention to Ukraine and to make Ukrainians proud as they maybe take a moment to forget the endless news of war at home to admire the battles on the dance floor in Paris.
Hanna Palamarenko, NPR News, Warsaw.
(SOUNDBITE OF MF DOOM'S "COFFIN NAILS")
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