The 2024 Paris Olympics marked breaking’s debut as a sport at the global event, with 36-year-old lecturer and breaker Rachael “Raygun” Gunn representing Australia for the first time.
Having failed to win a single point in any of her Olympic bouts, Raygun quickly became a viral sensation.
The question on many people’s minds now is: How did she even qualify?
Lucas Marie is a breaker who has competed, performed, taught and judged breaking competitions over the past 25 years. He’s also an anthropologist who recently co-authored an article with Gunn.
He says the answer to that question is simple.
“There was an Oceania qualifier in which any B-boy or B-girl from Australia [or] New Zealand could enter, and that was in Sydney in October 2023,” he told ABC News.
“And leading up to that, there were a lot of other events in which breakers were competing.
“She won those battles fair and square and won the qualification in Sydney.
“And it wasn’t really a surprise to anyone.
“She’s been fairly consistent, winning or coming second or third at a lot of breaking events in Australia for the last five to 10 years.”
Marie said there was nothing out of the ordinary about Raygun’s performance.
“It’s not like gymnastics where there’s this kind of agreed-upon standard,” he said.
“It’s always had a rawness to it. It’s always had an improvisational kind of quality. And I think looking different and trying different stuff has always been celebrated.
“And I think Raygun, in a way, was just expressing a core kind of hip hop trait in a way a lot of breakers do.”
He described her efforts as bold.
“I thought — and this is how I judge a lot of breaking events — I thought, ‘Oh, she’s making some really interesting choices to mimic Australian animals.’ And you can kind of see the choices that she’s making in the moment.”
Is she the best Australia has to offer?
Team Australia chef de mission Anna Meares insisted after Raygun’s performance that she was the best breaker the country had to offer. But is this true?
“It’s sometimes just who’s performing better on the day,” Marie said.
“And at the qualification event in which she won, and other events in which she’s won, she performed better on that day and won the ticket.
“That doesn’t mean she’s the best. It doesn’t really work like that.
“I think she’s a great breaker. She won the qualification. She’s won other events in the past, and she was a good representative for Australia at that competition.”
Asked whether there were B-girls in Perth, regional Victoria or rural Brisbane who might have qualified but could not afford to travel to Sydney for the tryouts, Marie agreed this was possible.
“Of course, there’s breakers all over the country that maybe should have been in that event, but they weren’t.”
Breaking will not carry over to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, a decision made before Raygun’s battle.
Marie described this as sad.
“Maybe, based on the ratings, they’ll reassess that and maybe allocate some medals to breaking,” he said.
“I really hope that’s the case, and I hope that for other breakers who want to compete in it as a dance sport.”
Marie said that at the end of the day people should remember they were dealing with a human.
“As a friend of Rachael’s, there’s a human being who’s getting a lot of negative attention,” he said.
“I think people kind of miss that sometimes and forget the human aspect of all this.”
‘Toying with the culture’
Malik Dixon is an African American who has been living in Australia for more than a decade and is a Sydney University graduate.
He said Raygun made a total “mockery” out of breaking at the Olympics.
“She was dressed like a member of the cricket team or an Australian PE teacher, and from that point it just seemed like satire,” Mr Dixon told ABC News.
“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.
“It made me think, was Borat her breakdancing coach?”
Mr Dixon said too many people felt entitled to African American culture.
“The African American space has been one where we’ve shared our community so much and without any restraints, any barriers, roadblocks, obstacles, any gatekeepers, that essentially what should have been African American cultural capital is just shared, which is cool,” he said.
“We like to share, right?
“We shared 400 years of free labour.
“To see Rachael in her attempt to be a part of the culture just be grossly underwhelming made it seem like she didn’t take it seriously.”
Olympics body criticised for Raygun qualification
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Mr Dixon criticised the body that qualified Raygun, saying she devalued breaking with her performance.
“Whatever governing body nominated her as Australia’s entrant into the Olympics either did not understand the assignment or didn’t really believe in the integrity or significance of breakdancing, because if they did they would just say, rather than disrespect the culture, we’re just not ready to send an applicant this year.”
He said Raygun was extremely audacious and not self-aware.
“You’ve got to know your role, know your position, know your limitation,” he said.
“And I think that part of privilege is saying that there are no limits to what I can do.
“Part of privilege is having the authority to say that there are no limits and there are no requirements, there are no prerequisites to what I can do.”
Raygun’s degrees do not hold much water with Mr Dixon.
“Due to consumerism, this Foundational Black American product, which is hip hop, is global,” he said.
“And even people who have no connection to any African Americans or any local or regional things that come out in these songs, they have become a part of the whole experience now.
“If I came in and said that I was an authority on Greek music and I was going against the grain of what the mainstream Greek musicians thought, or the school of thought, and I’ve said that I was the authority, people would check me on that.
“If I had a PhD in sprinting, does that qualify me to go against Noah Lyles? No, it doesn’t.”
He also doubts Raygun was the best breaker Australia had to offer.
“[There’s] got to be somebody out here that’s better than that! The kangaroo! The sprinkler! She did the sprinkler out there, man!” he said.
Should everybody just lighten up?
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Should we lighten up? Mr Dixon does not believe so.
“Larrikinism is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card and to escape responsibility of how words or actions impact a hurt person,” he said.
“But when the majority culture is offended, there’s no playing around.
“This is a part of my culture, and I don’t think Australians are in a place to tell me how I should feel about breakdancing being mocked on an international stage.
“People who don’t have any or limited access to black people or hip hop culture now may see Rachael and her buffoonery as a representation of hip hop and black culture.
“People who were already side-eyeing breakdancing as an Olympic sport, Rachael Gunn has put the nail in that coffin.
“This might be the most viral clip of the whole Olympics. From a comedy standpoint, she’s got it, but from an Olympics perspective, its regressive.”
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