Popular for her unconventional routine at the Paris Olympics 2024, Australian breaker Rachael Gunn has announced her retirement. Gunn, also known as Raygun, was trolled and criticised for her routine in Paris, which also led to conspiracy theories about her qualification for the event.
She failed to get into the scoreboard in all three of her rounds, and her routine also included moves like a kangaroo hop.
Breaking was included at the Olympics for the first time this year, but hasn’t been included on the program for Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032. Many fans also took to social media to blame Gunn as the reason for its exclusion from future Olympics. Speaking to a radio station 2DayFM, she said, “I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was.”
“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now. I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”
After her performance, she was chased by cameras through the streets of Paris, and in an interview with a television channel in Australia, she spoke about the way she reacted to it. “That was really wild. If people are chasing me, what do I do? That really did put me in a state of panic. I was nervous to be out in public. It was pretty nerve-wracking for a while,” she said.
During a TV program earlier, she defended her Olympic qualification. She said, “I won the Oceania championships. It was a direct qualifier. There were nine judges, all from overseas. I knew my chances were slim as soon as I qualified.”
“People didn’t understand breaking and were just angry about my performance. The conspiracy theories were just awful and that was really upsetting. People are now attacking our reputation and our integrity — none of them were grounded in facts,” she added.
Gunn is a lecturer at the Macquarie University Faculty of Arts in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature. Her research revolves around breakdancing, hip-hop, street dance, youth culture and gender in politics.
