B-Girl Kate - Ukraine 

BUDAPEST - Comments from B-Girl Kate of Ukraine after the Breaking Quarterfinals at the OQS Budapest on Sunday. She was beaten 3-0 by B-Girl Riko of Japan.

B-Girl Kate - Ukraine

On her battles today:

“It was honestly good. I felt good. I battled today different than I usually do. I had a little bit of free space in my brain to really enjoy what’s going on, which is unusual to me. I didn’t really stress. I have so much respect for all the girls, they went through such a long way, tough fight for four years. I started just last year, so I’m super happy with the outcome. So far, I’m really happy to be here and I’m happy that everything went my way. I’m satisfied with my performance today.”

On deciding to try to qualify for the Olympic Games just a year ago:

“It was spontaneous. I decided to do it, I qualified for OQS, and now I’m going to the Olympics. I noticed that I definitely needed to train for this event. Four hours break, then you have to warm up and do it again. That’s what I will work on next time. Also, create more dynamic material.

“My life won’t change a bit, with the Olympics or without it. I do it because I love it. I just love to do it, and there are a lot of events still happening. I’m really excited with this opportunity. I want to expose breaking to a bigger crowd, but at the same time I don’t do it for the Olympics. I do it for myself because I genuinely enjoy the practice.”

On what she thinks breaking brings to the Olympic Games:

“It’s fun to watch. It’s a beautiful sport where you never know who’s going to win. There's so much in it, so much style, charisma from different athletes. I just feel it’s something different. For the Olympics, it would be nice to include sports which are not super close to what’s already been there. Just something different. I think it’s win-win.

“We’re all going to party after this. Our community is super beautiful. I don’t know about other sports, but for us, we’re friends. We’re enemies on the dance floor but once that’s done, we hang out and we support each other online.

"I have five best friends, I know them through breaking. Our community is really tight and friendly. That’s the treasure, to have people like this around. That’s something the world should have more of. It’s such a beautiful, rich culture. I think if people learn about this through the Olympics, I think they’ll go 'wow'.”

OIS mc/xl/rm