Sunny Choi, a 35-year-old B-girl from Queens, New York, is set to make history as one of two women representing Team USA in breaking’s Olympic debut at the 2024 Paris Games. Choi’s journey to the Olympics is as unique as the sport itself, marked by a blend of corporate success, personal challenges, and an unwavering passion for breaking.
Choi’s love affair with breaking began serendipitously during her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, where she stumbled upon B-boys and B-girls practicing their acrobatic moves on campus. “It was a love-hate relationship because I was super shy,” Choi confessed to Business Insider. “But I knew it was something I really wanted to do.”
Read more: South Korea Introduced as North Korea at Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Committee Apologises
Following graduation, Choi embarked on a successful corporate career, climbing the ranks to become a director at Estée Lauder. However, balancing her demanding job with her rigorous training schedule proved to be a constant struggle. “I was always sacrificing,” Choi admitted. “As much as I say that job was just a paycheck, I still wanted to make sure I was doing my very best with that job, so I was working really really long hours.”
The announcement of breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics presented Choi with a difficult choice. After much deliberation, she decided to leave her corporate career behind to pursue her childhood dream of Olympic glory. “I knew that the Olympics was a childhood dream,” Choi explained. “It took some time to figure out what it was that was really stopping me and then figuring out whether it was actually worth not going for my dreams.”
Choi’s decision paid off in November 2023, when she secured her spot on Team USA by winning gold at the Pan American Games. She now faces the challenge of preparing for the Olympics while maintaining her mental and physical well-being. “Working through a lot of my mental health issues and then working through the sports psychology piece in combination, like together, with my therapist has been super helpful,”
In addition to therapy, Choi prioritizes self-care through practices such as taking short breaks between tasks to check in with herself and fuel her body with nutritious food. “It’s really important to care for my body every day so I can avoid future injuries, especially ahead of the games,”
Choi’s approach to training is as unique as her career trajectory. Breaking music is chosen live by a DJ, necessitating a different kind of preparation than most sports. Choi choreographs only 20-30% of her routine, leaving the rest to freestyle.
She explains, “I just make sure I hit some notes for technical difficulty and stuff like that, but then outside of that, whatever song comes on, you just kind of connect and go. It adds this element of surprise because the thing is, we don’t even know what’s going to happen, so how could the audience know what’s going to happen?”
This spontaneous element is just one of the ways breaking distinguishes itself from more traditional sports. The lack of a “traditional history of having coaches” means Choi is responsible for all aspects of her training, from scheduling practice sessions to choosing who she trains with. “So I go to practice, and I pick everything I’m going to do. I plan out my sessions every single day,” she explains. Despite this autonomy, Choi does work with a strength and conditioning coach and a breaking coach, highlighting the importance of physical preparation for this demanding sport.
Read more: Paris Olympics 2024: How Team Japan’s Uniforms are Fighting Digital Voyeurism
As the Olympics draw closer, Choi remains focused on her training while embracing the excitement and opportunities that come with being a trailblazing athlete. “I am so excited to not only be a debut breaking athlete at the Olympics, but to have the sport represented on such a global platform,” “Becoming an Olympic athlete and a Roblox avatar in the same year is wild.”
With her unconventional path and unwavering determination, Sunny Choi is poised to make a lasting impact on the world of breaking and inspire a new generation of athletes to pursue their dreams, no matter how unconventional they may seem.
