Sunny Choi

Grace Sun "Sunny" Choi (born November 10, 1988) is an American breakdancer who competed in the inaugural breaking competition at the 2024 Summer Olympics. She previously performed as a youth gymnast and a director at Estée Lauder before leaving to pursue breaking full-time. Choi participated at the 2022 World Games in the dancesport competition where she won the silver medal in the B-Girls event. In 2023, she won the first gold medal in breakdancing ever given at the Pan American Games. Because of that, she became the first American woman to qualify for Olympic breaking.

Early life and education Grace Sun "Sunny" Choi was born in November 10, 1988 in Cookeville, Tennessee, as the third of four children. Her parents, Jung-In and Kyung-Ju Choi, migrated from Daegu, South Korea for doctoral-level study at the University of Tennessee, with Jung-In going on to teach statistics at Tennessee Tech at the time of Sunny's birth. Her nickname, "Sunny", has been used by her family since birth; she also uses Sunny as her stage name when dancing to represent her warm personality. At the age of seven, her family moved to Louisville, Kentucky; Choi stated that her experiences with racism and alienation at predominantly white schools there led to an inferiority complex that impacted her into adulthood. At times, she had suicidal ideation and fatigue-induced hallucinations.

Choi decided to study business at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Although she joined the gymnastics team, she had to withdraw due to further injuries. Choi started breaking after walking home one night and noticing other students dancing on campus. Choi started competing in international breaking events by 2014, going on to win silver at the World Urban Games in 2019. Nevertheless, Choi took on marketing and project management roles for financial security despite her lack of fulfillment with corporate environments, thinking of breaking as a hobby, and eventually joined Estée Lauder in 2021 as the director of global creative operations. At the 2022 World Games dancesport competition, Choi won the silver medal in the B-Girls event. In January 2023, six months after her win, she left Estée Lauder to focus on breaking and because her high-pressure corporate work contributed to her continuing cycles of depression. Choi has cited mental health and self-care as a core focus of her preparation, allowing her to address her insecurities and keep in touch with her emotions, which she attributes to improving and personalizing her dancing. After the Olympics, Choi plans on opening a breaking center in Queens.