Breaking made its debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics — and while she didn’t earn a spot on the podium, the Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, known as Raygun, has received plenty of recognition online.
Gunn is a 36-year-old lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney whose research focuses on the “cultural politics of breaking,” according to her faculty profile.
But Gunn’s time on the Olympic stage was short-lived. The B-girl was eliminated during the round-robin stage of the women’s breaking competition, losing in one-on-one battles to the United States’ Logistx, France’s Syssy, and Lithuania’s Nicka.
Raygun didn’t earn a point in any of those battles, but as clips of her performance spread online, she got something else: instant meme status.
Here’s what you need to know about Raygun now that the breaking competition is over.
Raygun is an academic who studies breaking — and she competes internationally
Before Gunn went to the Olympics, she approached the 2024 Games from an academic perspective.
With her coauthor, Lucas Marie, Gunn published an article in the June 2023 issue of Global Hip Hop Studies titled “The Australian breaking scene and the Olympic Games: The possibilities and politics of sportification.” The article examined how the Olympics’ institutionalization would affect the Australian breaking scene.
Alongside her academic career, Gunn is a competing B-girl. But before she got into breaking, she had experience with ballroom dancing, jazz, hip-hop, salsa, and tap, The Australian Women’s Weekly reported. Gunn told The Sydney Morning Herald that her husband, Samuel Free, introduced her to breaking in 2008 while they were at university. Free is still her coach, she said.
Gunn told Women’s Weekly that breaking “hooked” her in 2012, around the time that she began her doctoral program in cultural studies. She began competing more seriously in 2018 and eventually set her sights on the Olympics.
According to her university profile, she was the top-ranked B-girl of the Australian Breaking Association in 2020 and 2021, representing the country at the World DanceSport Federation Breaking Championships in 2021, 2022, and 2023. She also won the WDSF Oceania Breaking Championships in 2023.
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
“My bag always has two main things: It’s like, my knee pads and my laptop,” Gunn said on the podcast “The Female Athlete Project.” “Because I need my knee-pads to break. And then, yeah, just do some emails quickly. Or like, do some revisions on a chapter I submitted, or copyedit this article I did, or moderate those grades.”
The athlete also told the Herald that she preferred to wear “baggy jeans and a baggy T-shirt” while breaking.
“I like the heaviness they bring,” Gunn said. “Maybe it’s my background in hip-hop, but having weight closer to the ground works for me, gets me in the right headspace.”
Raygun’s performances at the Olympics sparked memes and criticism
Raygun took the stage at the Olympics wearing a tracksuit in Australia’s green and gold, breaking out moves that included hopping like a kangaroo. Her performances attracted attention online and memes that compared her moves to, among other things, dancing children.
But some critics argued that Raygun’s performance didn’t represent breaking — a sport that will not return to the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
Breaking came from Black and brown communities in the Bronx in the 1970s. Malik Dixon, an African American man who lives in Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Gunn came off as “somebody who was toying with the culture” during a significant moment for the sport.
(You can watch the 2024 Olympic events — including Raygun’s full performance — on Peacock.)
Raygun qualified for the Olympics through the Oceania Breaking Championships
There were three ways to qualify for breaking at the Olympics, which the World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF) outlined in April 2022: at the WDSF championship in Belgium in September 2023, in a continental qualifier, or in an Olympic qualifier series held in 2024. Gunn qualified regionally by winning the WDSF Oceania Breaking Championships, which were held in Sydney in October 2023.
AUSBreaking organized the Oceania Breaking Championships, according to the WDSF.
Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
AUSBreaking posted on Instagram about the Oceanic Olympic qualifying event on Instagram in September 2023, announcing in a September 25, 2023 post that competitor registration was open. The panel of judges was composed of 10 breakers from multiple countries, led by head judge Katsu One of Japan.
Per the Sydney Morning Herald, Gunn was the highest-scoring B-girl on day one of the championships. She won two battles on the second day to secure her title and a qualifying spot in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
AUSBreaking released a statement on Instagram on August 12 about the selection process, saying that the qualifying event was “open to all interested participants in the Oceanic region,” conducted in line with WDSF standards, and adjudicated by an international panel that used the same judging system as the 2024 Olympics.
“Ultimately, Rachael Gunn and Jeff Dunne emerged as the top performers in exactly the same process, securing their spots to represent Australia in Paris,” the statement reads. “Their selection was based solely on their performance in their battles on that day.”
Raygun and sporting organizations have spoken out about misinformation after her performance
Claims have circulated online that Gunn unfairly obtained her spot in the games. Posts online, as reported by the Australian Associated Press, claimed that Gunn’s husband was one of the judges in her qualifying event. One petition hosted on Change.org claimed that she established the governing body that ran the selection process. That petition was eventually removed after it was placed under review, per an archived snapshot.
A representative for Change.org confirmed to Business Insider that the petition had been flagged for misinformation, reviewed per the platform’s community guidelines, and removed from the platform.
“Change.org maintains strict guidelines against content that constitutes harassment, bullying, or spreading false information. We take such matters seriously and remove any content that violates these standards to protect our users and uphold the integrity of our community,” the rep said in an email statement to BI.
Despite the online claims, Free was not one of the judges at Gunn’s qualifying event. And Gunn did not establish AUSBreaking. The organization said in a statement that it was founded by its president Lowe Napalan in 2019, and “at no point” was Gunn “the founder, an executive, committee member, or in any position of leadership.”
The Australian Olympic Commission (AOC) also released a statement condemning the Change.org petition, and demanding its removal. It also said that by winning the Oceania championship, Gunn was “legitimately nominated” by DanceSport Australia to the AOC to represent Australia at the Olympics.
“The petition has stirred up public hatred without any factual basis. It’s appalling,” AOC chief executive officer Matt Carroll said in the statement. “No athlete who has represented their country at the Olympic Games should be treated in this way and we are supporting Dr. Gunn and Anna Meares at this time.”
In a video uploaded to her personal Instagram account, Gunn said that she was “honored” to have represented Australia and breaking during its Olympic debut. But the “hate” that followed was “devastating,” she said. When it came to misinformation around her qualification, Gunn referred viewers to previously issued statements from the AOC and AUSBreaking.
Raygun and breaking judges have defended her Olympic performance
At a press conference on August 10, the day after Gunn’s competition, Anna Meares, the head of the Australian team, responded to criticism of Gunn online.
“I love Rachael, and I think that what has occurred on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors, and taking those comments and giving them airtime, has been really disappointing,” Meares said, per ESPN.
“Raygun is an absolutely loved member of this Olympic team. She has represented the Olympic team, the Olympic spirit with great enthusiasm. And I absolutely love her courage,” Meares continued. “I love her character, and I feel very disappointed for her, that she has come under the attack that she has.”
Hector Vivas/Getty Images
During a press conference on August 11, Martin Gilian, the Olympic breaking head judge, defended Gunn’s performance, saying breaking was “all about originality” and representing your roots, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
“This is exactly what Raygun was doing,” Gilian said. “She got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”
Gunn said during the August 10 press conference that “all of my moves are original,” ESPN reported. She told The Guardian that her biggest strength was “creativity.”
“I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative,” Gunn told The Guardian, “because how many chances do you get that in a lifetime to do that on an international stage. I was always the underdog and wanted to make my mark in a different way.”
Raygun said she hasn’t watched her full performance back since competing at the Olympics.
Gunn told Network 10’s “The Project” on Tuesday she was in a “state of panic” due to the media attention she received, and said that she hasn’t watched her full performance back yet.
“I have seen little bits and pieces, but yeah, I will watch it eventually. That’s not unusual for me, though, I’m not great at watching back my battles,” she said.
Gunn also touched on a “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” sketch where comedian Rachel Dratch impersonated Raygun and interrupted Fallon’s monologue.
“I don’t know whether to hug him or yell at him. I haven’t actually watched it the sketch because I don’t think I am in a place to watch it,” she said. The dancer added that she’s still figuring out how she feels about being thrust into the spotlight over her routine.
“I am still in the process of being able to describe how I feel about all this stuff because it kind of feels like a really weird dream that I’ve been having that I’m going to wake up from at any moment. Like, what is life right now?”
This story was originally published on August 12, 2024, and has been updated to include the latest information and statements from those involved.
