O UOL Sports spoke with the two Brazilians and each told how the battles went between the boys of breaking (b-boys, in English), and the girls, the b-girls.

“I’m not clinging to this vacation, I’m trying to live every moment. I’m already the best in the world, people who don’t know yet”, laughs Maia, who has already been champion of Queen of the Floor, in Denmark, and top 4 of the BC One E-Battle 2022.

“What’s cool is to see people who have written their story here, and I’m here to write mine, the importance of BC One is visibility, to be able to show my art to people and open up doors as Brazilian artists,” comments Maia, who was also the first Brazilian to reach The Notorious IBE World Final in Holland.

For Maia, dance manages to break paradigms because “there is a systematic prejudice in society, because when women choose to dance a dance aesthetic where there is little female representation, they consider it more masculine. , but it’s not true, there is no male dance and another female, art is for everyone,” he concludes.

“There is a lack of events and incentives for Breaking to develop in Brazil”

2013 Red Bull BC One Brazilian champion at 17, Leony Pinheiro, started the break when he was just 12, when he saw his cousin coming home turning his head in telling him he was into hip-hop.

From then on, Leony never stopped in his meteoric career, which also won him titles in 2016 and 2017 and this year he won his first quadruple national championship, which accredited him to the Brazilian team. of Olympic breaking as leader of the current classification. .

“Already B-boysometimes an athlete,” is the line on the Instagram profile of Leony, who has a 2-year-old, 8-month-old son named João Miguel.

Leony always wanted to know New York for the historical context of the emergence of hip-hop and took the opportunity to walk around the city, remembering the sounds of the 80s and 90s such as artists Eminem, 50 Cent, 2Pac, Notorious Big and Wu Tan Clan.

For Leony, who has already received invitations to live outside Brazil, breaking is a way of life, but on a sporting level, he hopes to compete in the Paris Olympics, and for this he has already listed the stages of the Olympic race until the Games.

“The ranking valid for 2024 started three weeks ago in South Korea, but next year will have the Pan American, continental and world championship events,” he reports.

The Olympics should push breaking organically, just like skateboarding did at the last Games (in Japan), and it’s appearing more and more in TV commercials. Before that, being on TV was a struggle, today it’s the opposite, the press comes after to talk about Breaking”

For the quadruple champion, “they always talk about São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but I’ve seen a lot of evolution in Pará, and a lot of people are inspired by me, Kley and Mini Japa, but they never talk . de Belém, because we don’t have many opportunities, there are few public and private incentives, there are no events and people get discouraged, even for those who dance and cannot come to São Paulo, where artists are held hostage by a very weak ecosystem,” he warns.

“Breaking is a battle of styles, my job and where I found my purpose, and when I told my mom when I was 15 she called me crazy, told me ‘go to school. But breaking made me understand life points in different ways and shaped my life,” he sums up.

Now Leony returns to São Paulo for his last engagement on November 19-20 with the Brazilian Championship final before going on vacation and preparing for training and big events from January.

“It’s going back to the lab, revisiting some things to see what went wrong and everything I learned and putting and creating new things, because that’s how it renews itself to bring new new things,” he adds.

The broadcast of the Red Bull BC One finals will take place this Saturday, November 12, from 8 p.m. link.