Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn has stepped away from the sport, saying competing again would be “really difficult” after experiencing intense backlash following the Paris Olympics.
Gunn, known as B-Girl ‘Raygun’, failed to score any points at the Olympics in routines that included a “kangaroo” dance, prompting a hostile response to her performance and appearance online and in some mainstream media.
The hate towards her routine-turned-meme culminated in an online petition that accused the 37-year-old of setting up her own governing body for breaking to qualify for the Games.
The petition gained 50,000 signatures before it was removed at the request of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC).
Gunn, ranked the world’s best female breaker by global governing body World DanceSport Federation in September despite her Olympics flop, said she lost her passion for the sport after the backlash.
The sport itself has been cut from the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“I still break, but I don’t compete. I’m not going to compete any more,” Gunn told 2DayFM.
“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now, to approach a battle.
“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online and it’s just not going to mean the same thing.”
University lecturer Gunn touched on the conspiracy theories surrounding her Paris performance, saying the intense scrutiny which extended to Gunn’s personal life was “still impossible to process”.
The petition claimed Gunn misused funding and that her husband Samuel Free was a judge at the Olympics qualifying event and is a national team selector.
The AOC came out in defence of Gunn, clarifying in a statement the qualifying event held in Sydney in October 2023 was conducted by the sport’s international governing body, as approved by the International Olympic Committee.
The committee also reiterated Gunn’s husband Free is a coach who holds no position with breakdancing’s national governing body AUSBreaking or DanceSport Australia in any capacity.
“It’s still impossible to process. The conspiracy theories were totally wild,” Gunn said.
“It was really upsetting. I felt like I just didn’t have any control of how people saw me or who I was, who my partner was, my story.
“People still don’t listen. People still don’t read. There are statements that have come out from the AOC.
“It was really tough. I just try and stay on the positives … that’s what gets me through.
“The people that have (been) like, ‘You have inspired me to go out there and do something that I’ve been too shy to do. You’ve brought joy, you’ve brought laughter. We’re so proud of you’.
“Just like really fricking lovely things that people have written and that is just what I hold on to.”
