Raygun responds to the reactions to the dance and refutes the lies about the “rigged Olympics”
Rachael Gunn, an Australian breakdancer better known as Raygun, has broken her silence after attracting heavy criticism for her breakdancing performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Gunn faced a storm of hate and misinformation following her participation in the Olympics. This year, for the first time, breakdancing was offered as a discipline at the Olympics. After winning the Oceania Breaking Championships, she secured a spot at the Olympics and was sent to Paris to represent Australia. However, her unconventional routine caused a stir among spectators. Gunn is relatively new to breakdancing and does not dance professionally full-time, as she is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at Macquarie University. Her nerves seem to have gotten the better of her at the Olympics, as she has described struggling with feelings of being inadequate compared to her younger and more experienced competitors. Nevertheless, she decided to go on stage anyway, have fun, and leave her mark in any way possible.
In her routine, she paid tribute to Australia’s national animal, the kangaroo, by performing a few kangaroo jumps and stances, among other unconventional moves such as toe-tapping on the floor. Her routine failed to impress the judges, who gave her zero points, although they praised her courage to try something new. Although there are occasional Olympic fails that generate a few laughs before being forgotten, many viewers overreacted to Gunn’s performance, mocking her cruelly and even spreading lies that she cheated her way into the Olympics. Now, Gunn is speaking out amid the backlash.
Rachael Gunn talks about Olympic controversy
Recently, Gunn posted a video statement on Instagram about the Olympics controversy. She began by addressing the positive aspects of her performance, expressing gratitude for how many people supported her and found her performance entertaining and creative. However, she went on to talk about how she never expected her performance to “open the door to so much hate” and that she found the hate “devastating.”
One of the main reasons for the criticism Gunn has received is the accusations that she didn’t take the competition seriously or perform to her best. The dancer denied these allegations, stating, “I worked my ass off preparing for the Olympics and gave it my all. I really did.” She also addressed the lie that she cheated her way into the Olympics. A rumor arose that she and her husband had influence with the Australia Breaking Association or the Australian Olympic team and used it to get Gunn a spot in the competition. Although this rumor has been debunked and a petition on Change.org was removed for spreading the defamatory lie, some have continued to spread the misinformation on social media.
In response, Gunn referred them to statements from the Australian Olympic Committee and AUSbreaking, which cleared them of any wrongdoing and condemned the defamatory allegations against them. Gunn also stated that her score of 0 did not reflect the actual scoring of dancers. On the Olympics website, one can see how the judges score each dancer on aspects such as technique, vocabulary, originality, execution and musicality. These scores are given as a percentage. Looking at this breakdown of scores, one can see that Gunn actually received some points for creativity and vocabulary.
Gunn concluded her statement by saying that she was taking a break in Europe and asked the press and social media to stop harassing her family, friends and the Australian breakdancing community. Unfortunately, her post has already been flooded with hate comments repeating the rumor that she cheated, demanding an apology and claiming she was playing the victim. However, her post simply cleared up some misinformation and defended her performance. Ultimately, only she knows how much effort she put into her performance and training and if she says it was her best, that cannot be refuted by netizens.
It’s clear that Gunn made it to the Olympics for a reason and has spent a lot of time training for her sport. Just because her performance wasn’t up to expectations doesn’t mean she deserves the hate, harassment, and defamation she receives.
