Raygun: How did B-Girl Rachael Gunn make it to the Olympics?

When Rachael Gunn, also known as Raygun, bombed out of the Paris Olympics, a small hip-hop image on the other side of the world was shocked by the ripples.

Breakers in a Sydney warehouse-turned-community center cozy up with abdominal exercises that would make a Pilates instructor cry before performing gymnastic acrobatics on the floor so difficult to identify.

The past week has been very important for one of the most significant activities of the year, which is the Red Bull BC One World Finals tournament.

A few people sigh uneasy as the few cameras that line the dancing group, their minds undoubtedly flashing images of Gunn that have thrown the internet into the mix.

Asian hip-hop pioneer Spice told the BBC,” I feel like it’s just pushed our scene in Australia into the Dark Ages.”

Gunn, a 36-year-old university lecturer, lost all three of her Olympic battles in viral fashion, her green and gold tracksuit and unorthodox routine – which included the sprinkler and kangaroo-inspired hopping – generating waves of memes and abuse.

The American community’s breaking has been divided and disappointed by the consequences.

” It made a ridicule of the American image and I think that’s why a lot of us are hurting”, Spice says.

Some people have sprung up to protect Raygun from the assault.

Others are willing to acknowledge that there are questions that need to be answered about her performance and qualifications, but claim that the widespread harassment has undermined any effort to properly assess what transpired in Paris.

Gunn has always been a dance, though initially in music, touch, and room, but it was her father and mentor Samuel Free who first introduced her to the world of breaking when she was 20.

She claims it took her years to reshape the male-dominated field.

Before the Olympics, she told The Guardian Australia,” There were times when I would go into the bath crying because I was but embarrassed at how bad I was at this.”

Gunn gradually emerged as the face of breaking in Australia as a top-ranked b-girl and educational with a PhD in the ethnic politics of the game.

And at a eligible Olympics event in Sydney in October, where 15 Oceanian people competed, Raygun triumphantly won the title and was awarded her Parisian entry.

Like Gunn, bursting was apparently a shocking candidate for the Olympics. The street party quickly developed into a worldwide phenomenon after being born in the social melting pot of the Bronx in the 1970s.

And in recent years, it caught the attention of Olympic officials who were trying to draw in new and younger people in addition to industrial sports like skateboarding and BMX slalom.

Some claimed it did n’t merit Olympic recognition, while others claimed a contest like this could n’t capture the essence of breaking and would only further detract from the street culture it originated in.

All eyes were on the Paris event to see if the Olympic Committee’s bargain had fruit.

It was obvious right away that splitting had truly captured the world’s attention when the last b-girl battle at the Olympics ended, or more precisely, Raygun had.

Murmurings and criticism of her achievement spread like animals, especially online. Gunn received a torrent of aggressive information.

An unnamed petition demanding Gunn sorry was signed by 50, 000 people.

Without providing any evidence, she was accused of manipulating her way onto the biggest step in Australia at the cost of other young talent.

Some people made up a fabricated claim that she had founded the brain that oversees the Oceania qualifiers and that her father, a well-known part of the breaking area and a competent judge, was a member of the panel that chose her.

Australian factchecking organisations and AUSBreaking, the national organisation for breaking, quickly tried to correct the record, but that didn’t stop the flood.

Those who claimed she had mocked hip-hop traditions were also voiced objections.

AUSBreaking emphasized in a number of statements that judges were” trained to uphold the highest standards of objectivity” and that not an Australian was ever a member of the nine-person board for the Oceania finals.

And while AUSBreaking has had many “interactions” with Raygun since its conception in 2019, at no stage had she ever held a management position or been involved in “any selection making over events, money, strategy, determine choice or performer selection”.

Te Hiiritanga Wepiha, a Kiwi prosecutor on the Oceania eligibility section, took to Instagram to deny all the” lunatic ideas,” saying Raygun won fair and square.

” All us judges talked about how she was going to get smashed, absolutely smashed ]at the Olympics ] … She knew it was going to be rough, so it’s actually courageous of her”, Wepiha – also known as Rush – said in a livestream

Some of the nation’s most renowned sports and top Olympic officials also vehemently defended Gunn.

” The complaint has sparked public anger without any scientific justification.” It’s appalling”, the Australian Olympic Committee’s Matt Carroll said in a speech.

Gunn herself had previously said she was “never” going to be able to defeat her prominent competitors, but had “wanted to proceed differently, be creative and creative”.

Gunn stated in a video that was posted to social media in the face of the storm that she had taken the competition “very seriously.”

” I worked my hardest while trying to get ready for the Olympics,” I said. Truly”.

She had only been trying to “bring joy”, she said. ” I did n’t realize that that would also open the door to so much hate, which has frankly been pretty devastating”.

Some hip-hop artists in Australia acknowledge that the reaction to Raygun’s routine initially elicited” a chuckle” but quickly got out of hand.

Everyone blasted the level of misinformation, abuse, and ridicule that had been directed at Raygun and the wider Australian b-girl population without exception.

But beyond that, feeling is somewhat split.

Many b-girls say Raygun’s performance does not reflect the standard in Australia.

” When I first saw it, I was so embarrassed”, Spice– who retired from breaking years ago – says.

On any other stage, Raygun would have been praised and applauded for “having a go,” Spice claims, but there is a requirement for those who represent the nation to be at a certain level.

” It’s the Olympics for God’s sake”!

” In hip-hop we have this thing, you step up or you step off … You need to know your place”.

She stresses, though, that the “bullying is just disgusting”.

B-girl’s videos are being trolled, their DMs inundated with insults and violent threats. Many young dancers now feel unsafe performing in public because of harassment they are receiving at school.

” The impact this controversy has had on the local Australian girls has been devastating…]we’re ] allowed to be angry”, b-girl Tinylocks told the BBC.

She said, like some others the BBC spoke to, that they did not want their full names to be published due to the volume of abuse that was being circulating.

Tinylocks, who has battled Raygun herself, believes Gunn simply had a terrible day, and questions her routine choices.

” We know you’re capable of more … Were you set up for success”?

Wepiha, the judge on the Oceania panel known as Rush, claims Gunn’s victory in qualifying shows how big the “tiny” breaking scene in Australia is and how much more popular and government-backed it is.

” I mean, we had to actually get people out of retirement to make up the numbers”, Rush said.

” That’s how small the scene is”.

Others claim that there were rules in place that could have increased the talent pool, such as the requirement that potential qualifiers must be members of AUSBreaking and have a valid passport in accordance with those recommendations made by the World Dance Sport Federation.

AUSBreaking did not respond to the BBC’s queries about Raygun’s selection, the financial support it receives or how it seeks out the country’s best breaking talent.

However, Steve Gow, the group’s secretary and Stevie G’s long-time b-boy, tells the BBC that the size and geographic isolation of Australia prevents the growth and development of the scene.

Being so far away from larger, more hip-hop communities abroad can make it difficult to learn from them, both financially and in terms of the required time.

” It can be very insular”, he says.

As if proving the point, he regularly pauses to greet almost everyone who walks into the Red Bull competition, which he is judging.

He asserts that there is still a high standard of breaking in Australia.

Ultimately, the community is bitterly hurt by the world’s response.

They feel breaking is n’t truly understood, and that people have piled on without knowledge or context.

” It’s a big disappointment because they’re not talking about the winners … they’re all talking about Raygun’s memes, and they’re not even seeing her full set”, Samson Smith– a member of hip hop group Justice Crew and a breaker for over two decades – told Network 10.

However, many people are hopeful that there may still be a bright side to the story.

” She might actually bring enough attention to get resources”, Rush said.

” Australia has the most well-known Olympian of 2024, and she might actually save the scene here,” she said.