As the controversy continues to swirl around Olympic breakdancer Raygun, whose unorthodox moves went viral this week, so do questions about how she was even allowed to compete in the first place.
Raygun is also known as Dr. Rachael Gunn, a 36-year-old lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She studies and teaches breaking and street dancing.
Here’s exactly how Raygun qualified for the 2024 Olympics.
How Did Raygun Qualify for the Olympics?
The drama surrounding Raygun all started after her breakdancing performance at the 2024 Olympics in Paris on Aug. 10. Raygun notched three straight losses in the round-robin (early prelims) portion of the breaking competition, and wasn’t awarded anything from the judges when facing off against her competitors from the U.S., France and Lithuania.
Raygun performed a series of bizarre moves including a kangaroo hop, and spent most of her routine on the floor lying down or spinning around. As a result, the performance was met with both uproarious clowning as well as seething hatred around the internet. Social media was letting up with the memes. Tweets mocking her like “‘These edibles ain’t working!'” along with the words “*15 minutes later*” to compare Raygun’s moves to the effects drugs have on the body were posted. Many people questioned how she could have possibly qualified for the Olympic games.
Matters were made worse when a viral petition began circulating around the internet on Sunday (Aug. 11), accusing the athlete of “unethical conduct.” The Change.org petition has since been taken down, but in the last few days it was active accumulated over 29,000 signatures. It was created by a user named “Someone Who hates corruption,” and accused Raygun and Australian Olympic Committee president Anna Meares of rigging the selection process for the games and overlooking other talented Aussie breakdancers in favor of Raygun.
However, the petition was filled with a few allegations against Raygun that have since been debunked by The Sydney Morning Herald, including that Raygun and Samuel Free, her husband, coach and b-boy Sammy The Free, rigged the selection process. The petition claimed Raygun and Free of being the founders of AUSBreaking, formerly known as the Australian Breaking Association—the organization that takes part in the games. This is not true, as Raygun and Free aren’t affiliated with the group.
“While AUSBreaking has had many interactions and points of contact with Raygun, at no point was she the founder, an executive, committee member or in any position of leadership,” AUSBreaking said in a statement. “She was not involved in any decision-making over events, funding, strategy, judge selection or athlete selection.”
Yet the question remains: how exactly did Raygun qualify for the Olympics?
After Paris announced in 2022 that they’d be partnering with the World DanceSport Federation to bring breaking to the 2024 Olympics, they established that there would be 32 spots, 16 b-girls and 16 b-boys, available in the games with three different ways to earn a slot.
The first opportunity to qualify came at the WDSF World Championships in Belgium in September of 2023. One man and one woman could qualify there, but there was also a “continental qualifying event,” which had two spots open for a man and a woman breaker. The remaining 20 spots were then decided at the Olympic qualifier series events in Budapest and Shanghai in May and June of 2024.
As for Raygun, she qualified at Australia’s regional qualifying event the 2023 WDSF Breaking Oceania Championship in Sydney last October. AUSBreaking organized the event, and according to The Sydney Morning Herald, the 2023 judging panel was comprised entirely of international breakers, including Katsu One of Japan. Raygun’s husband was not one of the judges.
AUSBreaking has also had a national ranking system since 2020, with public records showing Raygun ranked first during the inaugural ranking and 2021 ranking. She then placed second in both the 2022 and 2023 rankings.
Raygun then competed in the WDSF Oceania Breaking Championship in October of that year. Local outlets reported she was the top-scoring b-girl on the first day of the competition and made it to the top eight. After the second day, Raygun earned the qualifying spot.
AUSBreaking has since released multiple statements in regard to the controversy surrounding Raygun, including that Raygun was judged at the Oceania championships with the same system as the 2024 Olympics. AUSBreaking also condemned any harassment against Raygun.
When reached for comment, the Australian Olympic Committee released a statement to XXL condemning the anonymous online petition “attacking Australian Olympic Team member, breaking competitor Raygun as vexatious, misleading and bullying.”
“AOC Chief Executive Officer Matt Carroll says the AOC has written to change.org which has published the petition demanding it be immediately withdrawn,” the statement continued. “Mr. Carroll says the petition contains numerous falsehoods designed to engender hatred against an athlete who was selected in the Australian Olympic Team through a transparent and independent qualification event and nomination process.”
The statement adds that the AOC is particularly offended by the petition’s comments about Anna Mears. “The Australian Team Chef de Mission played no role in the qualification events nor the nomination of athletes to the AOC Selection Committee, of which the Chef and I are members,” the statement read. “It is disgraceful that these falsehoods concocted by an anonymous person can be published in this way. It amounts to bullying and harassment and is defamatory. We are demanding that it be removed from the site immediately. The petition has stirred up public hatred without any factual basis. It’s appalling. No athlete who has represented their country at the Olympic Games should be treated in this way and we are supporting Dr Gunn and Anna Meares at this time.”
The AOC closes with, “It’s important that the community understands the facts and that people do not form opinions based on malicious untruths and misinformation.”
XXL has reached out to AUSBreaking for further comment.
In one of its many statements, AUSBreaking echoed AOC’s sentiment and specifically noted Raygun’s husband had nothing to do with the selection process.
“Contrary to circulating misinformation, Dr. Gunn’s husband, Raygun’s coach, was not a member of the selection panel or judging committee,” one of AUSBreaking’s statements read. “This would have constituted a conflict of interest, and the Olympics hold strict standards that would never have allowed this to pass.”
Raygun herself has also responded to the backlash. She shared a video on Instagram on Thursday (Aug. 15) reacting to the criticism of her breakdancing, which she calls “devastating.” She also instructed critics to refer to the statements issued by AUSBreaking and others in regards to her and her husband rigging the competition.
“I just want to start by thanking all the people who have supported me, I really appreciate the positivity and I’m glad I was able to bring some joy into your lives, that’s what I hoped,” Raygun began. “I didn’t realize that that would also open the door to so much hate, which has frankly been pretty devastating. I went out there and I had fun, I did take it very seriously. I worked my butt off preparing for the Olympics and I gave my all, truly. I’m honored to have been a part of the Australian Olympic Team and to be a part of Breaking’s Olympic debut.”
She also implored the press to, “stop harassing my family, my friends, the Australian breaking community, and the broader street dance community.”
While the trolling and hatred for Raygun may have escalated too far, there is something valid in people in the hip-hop community and beyond questioning what exactly happened for her to be allowed on the Olympics stage. Raygun’s losing performance was even more shocking as the 2024 Paris Games were filled with dozens of incredible highlights, most of them featuring women athletes like gymnast Simone Biles and sprinter Sha Carri Richardson.
Raygun has since attempted to champion her undeniably poor routine into a feat of brave self-expression and boundless “creativity.” Whether or not that’s true, the fact remains Raygun did not win over the hearts of the judges and is struggling to win over the hearts of the internet.
Read More: Olympics Breakdancing – A Look at the Competitions, Viral Videos and Results in Paris
Watch Raygun’s statement below.
Watch Raygun Speak on Her Breakdancing Controversy at 2024 Olympics
Watch Raygun Compete at 2024 Olympics
See AUSBreaking’s Statement on RayGun