A Ukrainian breaker’s journey to the Paris Olympics

by Pelican Press
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A Ukrainian breaker’s journey to the Paris Olympics

By the time Russian forces invaded her homeland in 2022, Kateryna Pavlenko was far away in Los Angeles, coming up in the world of the newest Olympic sport of breaking.

She had moved from Kharkiv, Ukraine, a year earlier, partly to pursue her hobby and partly drawn by a boyfriend who was also in the sport. They split up, but she stayed, finding a vibrant community and training strong enough to meet her goal of representing her country at the Paris Games.

Pavlenko, 29, is in Paris, competing in the first Olympic breaking competition Friday, hoping to deliver a coveted medal for a home country that is far different from the place where she grew up.

When the war started, she was in horror and disbelief. It couldn’t be real that one of her grandfathers and an aunt had died from Russian bombings, or that her parents had been forced to flee to the Czech Republic. Her city was crumbling.

“My world was ruined,” she said in an interview, “but then it got rebuilt.”

In June 2023, Pavlenko and her mother drove for two days from the Czech Republic to Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine. They went to check on the lives they once had at an apartment in the city and a house in a village about 19 miles away.

Nothing was how Pavlenko remembered it. The house was looted while the area was under Russian occupation. Ukraine had since regained the land, but by the time they arrived, even the pillows had been snatched and the carpet shredded. The only life enduring was a family of pigeons nested by balcony windows that had been blown out by bombs.

Her family’s apartment in the center of the city was in better shape, essentially untouched since her parents left. The plan was to rent it out in her family’s absence.

In her old room, Pavlenko sifted through medals she had won from breaking competitions in her youth and gazed at her school diplomas.

“It’s great to see, but it’s not your home anymore,” she said. “It’s really hard to accept.”

Kateryna Pavlenko takes a sip of water while she waits to compete at an Olympic qualifying event in Shanghai, China on May 18, 2024. (Haruka Ambai)

Kateryna Pavlenko at an Olympic qualifying event in Shanghai on May 18. (Haruka Ambai)

Kharkiv used to be home to about 1.4 million people, the second-largest city in the country. In the early 2000s, breaking gained traction and the city became known as Ukraine’s hip-hop capital. Pavlenko signed up for a class in extreme dance in 2009 after learning about it from a schoolmate and immediately loved breaking.

She stuck with it, contrary to some hesitations from her mother, who fretted over the abundance of bruises on her body and believed the sport wasn’t feminine enough.

Still, at 14, Pavlenko started traveling to the other side of Kharkiv, 90 minutes by train, for more breaking classes after school. She felt powerful, the queen of her world. Soon, she began winning competitions across Europe. Red Bull sponsored her. And she became known as B-Girl Kate.

During her two-week visit to Kharkiv last summer, Pavlenko realized her home no longer brought her the same comfort. A walk through a city park terrified her when bomb sirens sounded. Everyone around her continued on their way when they discovered the neighborhood was not immediately and directly at risk. But Pavlenko froze. Her head thrummed with anxiety at the thought of other Ukrainians dying from another attack somewhere nearby.

She felt lucky to return to Los Angeles, where she had an apartment, a work visa and a job as a stylist at a pop-up clothing store. She also had a clear goal to strive toward — a spot on the Ukrainian Olympic team. Breaking was added to the program just for the Paris Games, making this the only foreseeable chance for athletes in her sport to compete on the Olympic stage.

All she needed to do was finish among the top eight b-girls by the end of two Olympic qualifier events, one in Shanghai and one in Budapest.

Judges watch Kateryna Pavlenko perform a move on the floor during a breaking battle in Shanghai, China on May 18, 2024. (Haruka Ambai)

After Kateryna Pavlenko started winning, Red Bull sponsored her. And she became known as B-Girl Kate. (Haruka Ambai)

She united with the rest of Ukraine’s breaking team, including four other competitors, in Poland in the lead-up to the first competition in Shanghai. She bonded with her teammates while trying not to focus too much on the idea that they would likely have to compete against one another.

But her nerves bubbled up anyway.

She faltered in Shanghai to the pressure she perceived, and she saw other athletes with similar stressors. She lost sleep, couldn’t eat and fell in battles to two eventual Olympians, the American phenom Logan Edra, known as Logistx, and China’s Zeng Yingying, who goes by Ying Zi.

But she salvaged enough to put herself in good position for the next qualifier by letting go of her worries about the score during the last battle, trusting in the powerful spins, handstands and other moves that she knew she could showcase. When it all came together, she thought: “This is why I live.”

She cleared her mind with a trip to Joshua Tree in California ahead of her final chance in Budapest in late June.

This time, she slept well and felt much better prepared to compete. She wound up in a battle against one of her teammates and training partners, Anna Ponomarenko, and made it through. Pavlenko had qualified for Paris and celebrated with a doping test, media interviews and celebratory shots with other competitors.

It was a blissful blur that ended in exhaustion and overwhelming gratitude.

And Ponomarenko, who goes by Stefani, ended up qualifying, too, as the only other Ukrainian to qualify for the women’s breaking competition. Oleg Kuznietsov, who goes by Kuzya, is competing in the men’s division; he was born in Siberia, Russia.

Recently, Ukrainian Olympic officials advised their athletes to avoid the Russians and Belarusians competing as neutral athletes. Pavlenko agreed that non-communication would be the best approach. None of the 32 athletes with the neutral designation are in breaking.

​​“I want to represent my country because that’s where I grew up, that’s where I started breaking, that’s what built me as a human, as a woman,” Pavlenko said.

Kateryna Pavlenko, right, battles against b-girl Ayumi, left, during the round-robin stage of competition in Budapest, Hungary. (Little Shao / WDSF)

Kateryna Pavlenko dreams of shaking hands with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president. (Little Shao / WDSF)

The women’s competition is scheduled for Friday and the men’s is set for Saturday at La Concorde, the urban park that is also the site of 3×3 basketball, skateboarding and BMX freestyle competitions.

There, at the site of one of the most famous plazas in the world, near the Seine River with its large obelisk in the heart of the city, breaking will play out in a series of brief head-to-head battles, with early rounds whittling the women’s field from 17 to eight b-girls. From there, the tournament becomes a single elimination knockout. The structure, with 16 competitors on the men’s side, has similarities with the pool play and knockout rounds of basketball and soccer, but will fully play out in just a few rapid-paced hours.

During each battle round, breakers have a brief window to perform their best moves. After each round, nine judges each choose a winner based on technique, execution, musicality and originality. The judges’ scores are weighed, meaning they can determine that one breaker overwhelmingly outperformed the other in a given round.

During the early round-robin stages, each battle has two rounds. The knockout battles have three rounds each.

In the weeks before the Games, Pavelenko returned to Warsaw for her final training camp. Her days consisted of exercising and breaking for a few hours, watching videos of previous performances and maintaining healthy eating and sleeping habits.

She said she focused on bringing “old Kate back,” the one who focused on her love for the dance rather than the nitpicking of the sport. If she could bring a stronger, more playful aura to the Olympics, she could medal, she told herself.

Physically, she felt ready. Mentally, she had work to do. She started to feel like she wasn’t prepared enough. She felt guilty for having a cocktail with an old friend one night. Her inner critic was taking over.

“I’m losing myself more, and for this competition, I need myself the most,” she said. “I need to feel good in my head … be confident in myself, no matter what.”

Talking to her therapist helped. So did journaling, affirmations and reminders of how rare it is to reach the Olympics. She had already achieved something so few would ever experience — how cool is that, she thought. Her mental strength returned.

When Pavlenko arrived in the Olympic Village on Tuesday, she closed her notebook and ceased practicing, except for light warmups. She was as ready as she ever would be.

She figures she will miss breaking enough by Friday to let go of her nerves and focus solely on the freedom she feels while performing.

Being in the athletes’ village is fun, she said, to mingle with elite athletes from all over the world. “Everyone wearing their team outfits, trading pins, food is open 24/7 — that’s good news,” she said in a text message with a laughing emoji. A Ukrainian flag hangs off the balcony of her room.

She is dreaming of standing on top of a podium with a gold medal around her neck. A bouquet of flowers in her arms. Perhaps eventually shaking hands with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president.

If that happened, “I’m a country hero,” Pavlenko said. “In such times, to be able to represent and win a gold medal, so people talk about Ukraine more again and don’t forget about us, that would be amazing.”

(Top photo of Kateryna Pavlenko at an Olympic qualifying event in Budapest: Little Shao / WDSF)



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