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Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn is retiring from competitive breaking following the harsh reaction to her performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Gunn, also known as “B-girl Raygun”, shot to internet notoriety almost overnight in August after she performed unusual moves at the Games, including a kangaroo hop and a wriggle on the floor.
“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,” Gunn, 37, a university lecturer with a PhD in dance, told local radio station 2DayFM on Wednesday.
“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”
The Paris Olympics was criticised for including breaking as a port. The Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 has ditched it, but Gunn said she won’t be participating in local competition either.
“I still break but that’s like, in my living room with my partner,” she said.
The Australian left the Paris competition without scoring a single point. She was knocked out at the round robin stage after losing all three of her bouts. Her performance, especially a step where she seemed to wriggle on the ground, bemused Olympic fans and officials alike and she became the subject of condescending social media chatter.
Gunn’s performance sparked a petition calling for an apology from the athlete as well as Australia’s Olympic chef de mission Anna Meares. The petition, which received over 50,000 signatures, derided Gunn and Meares for “attempting to gaslight the public and undermining the efforts of genuine athletes”.
She described the response to her performance “devastating”.
“I’d really like to ask the press to please stop harassing my family, my friends, the Australian breaking community and the broader street dance community,” she said in an Instagram video at the time.
“Everyone has been through a lot as a result of this, so I ask you to please respect their privacy.”
Gunn also apologised to the breaking community but insisted that her “record speaks” to her being Australia’s best B-girl.
