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As anyone who watched the breaking competition at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games knows, 36-year-old university lecturer Rachael Gunn, AKA Raygun, is now an internet superstar.
Sadly, Gunn, who lost her three rounds of competition by a combined score of 54-0, won’t be competing at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles because breaking won’t be a sport there.
Her bizarre gyrations and inexplicable mean-mugging will be missed though because even though she was mocked worldwide Gunn was one of the most memorable competitors to compete in Paris over the past two weeks.
While almost no one who watched will ever understand how out of the entire country of Australia Gunn was chosen to compete at the Place de la Concorde, she still managed to make millions of new fans.
Among those fans is Martin Gilian, the chief breaking judge at the Olympics, also known as MGbility, who defended Raygun’s strange performance.
“It’s all about originality and it’s all about bringing something new to the table and representing your country or region,” CNN reports Gilian said.
“This is exactly what Raygun was doing, she got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo … She created some original moves which could be maybe funny or entertaining for others, but for us, she basically represented breaking and hip hop. She was trying to be original and bring something new to the table. From our perspective, that was nothing really shocking.”
It may not have been shocking to Gillan, but to Sergey Nifontov, the general secretary of the World DanceSport Federation, the negative responses on social media to Raygun’s performence were definitely worrying.
“That should not happen in our world. Something is going in the wrong direction,” he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also had Raygun’s back.
“Good on her and a big shout-out to her. That is in the Australian tradition of people having a go. She’s had a go representing our country and that’s a good thing,” Albanese said.
“The Olympics is about people participating in sport. That’s a good thing and Raygun had a crack.
“Whether (athletes have) won gold medals or just done their best, that is all we ask for. It’s the participating that is really important.”
The good news for Raygun, and all of her new fans, is that there is still a chance that breaking will included as an Olympic sport in Brisbane in 2032. Imagine how big a star Gunn would become should she get to compete again on a worldwide stage in her home country?