Phil Wizard grabs gold at Breaking for Gold World Series in Montpellier
B-Boy Phil Wizard has earned his first win on the Breaking for Gold World Series, a crucial pathway towards qualifying for Paris 2024.
Canada’s top-ranked breaker, whose off-stage name is Philip Kim, finished first on Thursday in Montpellier, the third stop of the Breaking for Gold World Series. He defeated Japan’s B-Boy Shigekix 3-0 in the final.
Kim had placed second at the Breaking for Gold World Series event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in mid-April, which came after a disappointing 10th-place finish in Kitakyushu, Japan in late February.
He had gone to Japan as the reigning world champion after claiming that title in October at the WDSF World Championships where he also defeated B-Boy Shigekix in the final.
With his latest victory, Kim will gain 1000 points towards his Olympic qualification ranking. He went to Montpellier as the number four ranked b-boy behind Danis Civil (B-Boy Dany) of France, Shigeyuki Nakarai (the aforementioned B-Boy Shigekix) of Japan, and Menno Van Gorp (B-Boy Menno) of the Netherlands.
Among other accolades for B-Boy Phil Wizard is silver medal from the 2021 WDSF World Championships.
The next event for Kim will be the WDSF Pan American Championships taking place May 27-28 in Santiago, Chile. Canadian fans will be able to catch him and other top b-boys at the Breaking for Gold International Series event in Montreal over the weekend of June 3-4.
When breaking makes its Olympic debut at Paris 2024, it will include 32 competitors, 16 men and 16 women. The gold medallists at the 2023 WDSF World Championships in September will be automatically qualified. There is also one spot per gender available at continental qualifiers this year, which for the Americas will be the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games taking place in October.
Seven men and seven women will qualify via the Olympic Qualifier Series of events that will take place between March and June in 2024. To be eligible to participate in the Olympic Qualifier Series, breakers must be ranked in the top 14 for their gender in the Breaking for Gold rankings.