Victor Montalvo is breaking his way to the Olympic podium.
The 30-year-old Mexican American b-boy, known mononymously as Victor, claimed the bronze in the debut of the Breaking dancesport competition at the 2024 Paris Games.
Victor, the highest ranked American male breaker in the world, defeated won the battle for bronze 3-0 against Japan’s Shigekix at La Concorde in Paris.
Victor’s win comes just after he lost to France’s Dany Dann in the semifinal round, while Canada’s Phil Wizard beat out Shigekix.
Montalvo initially finished at the top of group A and took out Amir of Kazakhstan 3-0 in the quarterfinal knockout round.
The Paris Olympics‘ breaking competitions on Friday and Saturday saw 16 b-boys and 16 b-girls — the colloquial term for a breaker, or breakdancer — battle against each other one-on-one as a panel of judges scored the matches based on six different criteria: creativity, personality, technique, variety, performativity and musicality.
Montalvo, who is originally from Florida, previously opened up about why he is passionate about breaking in an interview for Team USA, explaining that he first picked up the sport from his cousin when he was just 9 years old.
“It was something just so amazing,” he said. “I just loved the music and the way it made me feel. I’m a super shy kid, so for me it was perfect because you don’t need to talk to anyone. You just need the dance floor and yourself. So it was like a really awesome art form slash sport for me.”
