Can you name the b-girl that won the breakdancing competition at the Paris Olympics? Do you know who came in second and third? If you don’t, you’re part of a massive swath of people who are only really aware of Olympic breakdancing because of one woman: 36-year-old Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, who went massively viral following an eyebrow-raising performance, which garnered a score of zero and immediately thrust her into the spotlight. The videos were everywhere, but they’re being removed from the internet for one specific reason. What is it? Read on to find out.
Who is Rachael Gunn aka Raygun?
Before the Olympics, Raygun was just another anonymous academic woman from Australia. Born in New South Wales in 1987 in a suburb called Hornsby, she was classically trained in ballroom, tap and jazz dancing.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in 2009 in contemporary music from Barker College and then got a PhD in 2017 from Macquarie University. Her thesis was called “Deterritorializing Gender in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene: A B-girl’s Experience of B-boying.”
Gunn got into breakdancing from her husband Samuel Free, who had been a b-boy for about a decade. She started breaking in her mid 20s and participated competitively often, only pausing to procure her PhD. Her husband coaches her and claims she trains daily for up to four hours.
In an interview with The Guardian, Raygun said it took her a long time to feel comfortable breakdancing in a scene that was dominated by men: “There were times that I would go into the bathroom crying because I was so embarrassed at how terrible I was at this,”
While it may seem like it’s the case, Raygun’s first time breakdancing competitively did not happen at the Paris Olympics. She actually has a pretty good resume and was ranked second in 2022 and first in 2023 in Australia’s open b-girl ranking. Over the past decade, she’s won numerous Australian breakdancing events, and often finishes in the top five.
In 2023 Gunn won the Oceania Breaking Championships, which earned her a spot in the Olympics.
Why did Raygun’s Olympic breakdancing performance go viral?
Let’s start with how breakdancing was judged during the Olympics. First of all, there are three basic elements of breakdancing: top rock, down rock and freeze.
Every move made while standing is referred to as top rock. Freeze is when the dancer will come to a standstill on a difficult position, like a handstand or a headspin. Perhaps the most important element of breaking is down rock. Down rock is characterized by all the moves done while the dancer is on the floor, including transitions, foot work and power moves.
Power moves are the key to Olympic breakdancing. These moves include spinning your whole body on hands, elbows, black, shoulders or head. This is where the true athleticism and acrobatic of beauty are displayed. Some moves are just as taxing as a gymnast routine, like the air flare, where a dancer rotates upside down alternating balance on either arm.
Judges score breaking on six categories: creativity, technique, performativity, musicality, personality and variety. Technique, creativity and performativity make up 60 percent of the total score and variety, musicality and personality make up the remaining 40 percent.
Dancers participate within four groups with four athletes each in the Olympics. Each athlete goes head to head with another in three battles with two rounds each. Dancers are ranked by rounds won and judges’ votes. Here’s how scoring works:
“Each round is judged by nine judges against five criteria. The judging system produces a vote for each judge for each round in favour of one of the athletes (red or blue), with a percentage figure indicating the strength of their vote in favour of red or blue across all five criteria. The possible vote scores for each round can be 9-0, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3 or 5-4 in favour of an athlete.”
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but for our purposes it mostly explains the process. Gunn participated in three battles at the Olympics and lost every one by a score of 0-2. While she may have scored a point here and there, she was completely outshined by her competitors.
Her performance went viral because it didn’t really feel like she knew what she was doing out there, and it felt like she was breakdancing for the first time. Obviously this wasn’t the case but boy did it seem like it.
American Malik Dixon, who lives in Australia explained it this way to the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC):
“It just looked like somebody who was toying with the culture and didn’t know how culturally significant it was being the first time in the Olympics and just how important it was to people who really cherish hip-hop and one of the elements of hip-hop, which is breakdancing.”
Much of the backlash and confusion came from Raygun’s simplistic moves, which felt like they were created by someone who’d been watching a breakdancing movie on TV and trying it out as a hobby. You’ve seen the memes.
There were even allegations (unfounded) that she manipulated the selection process to secure a spot on the team.
How did Raygun react to the backlash?
All things considered, Raygun actually responded in a fairly sober and straightforward way in a video she posted to social media. In the video, she thanked her supporters and said she appreciated the positivity and was glad to have the opportunity to “bring some joy into your lives.”
As for all of the hate? She called it “pretty devastating.”
Why are Raygun’s videos being deleted from the internet?
Raygun’s dancing videos have been disappearing from the internet as of late, and that can be chalked up to a simple matter of copyright infringement. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has reportedly been diligently removing Raygun clips from all over the web, disabling accounts in the process.
IOC rules say that “no part of the site may be copied, republished, reproduced or transmitted without actual written authorisation,” and that includes Raygun’s historic performance. This doesn’t mean her clips are going to disappear, it just means you have to watch them from the appropriate places.