Amy Kuperinsky
nj.com
(TNS)
The debut of breaking at the Olympics was long in the making.
Breaking — breakdancing, to some — started with the birth of hip-hop culture in ‘70s New York.
Rapper Snoop Dogg, a presence throughout NBC’s coverage of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, opened the first breaking competition Friday.
But after the sport made history at the games, it seemed all anyone could talk about on social media was Raygun.
The breaker, Rachael Gunn, is a 36-year-old professor from Australia. Her moves didn’t allow her to advance in the competition, but they certainly got everyone’s attention.
Clips from Raygun’s performance were shared ad nauseam and memed to oblivion, becoming some of the most enduring images of the competition.
Whether it was when she started kicking around on the ground or busted out her signature kangaroo hop, the Australian contender lit up social media.
“I don’t care, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen at the #Olympics,” @Quezare said on X, formerly Twitter, sharing a clip of Raygun sweeping — or dragging — her legs across the floor.
Aussie break dancer Rachael 'Raygun' Gunn has to be trolling the entire world🤣#Olympics📷 #raygun #Paris2024📷 #breaking #breakdancing #aussie #Australia pic.twitter.com/tiCz6UVCJh
— immutable truth 💎 (@ImmutabullTruth) August 10, 2024
Raygun represented Australia at the World Breaking Championships in 2021, 2022 and 2023, but posts reacting to her Olympic debut did not marvel at her medal potential.
Apparently “sexism” is the reason why RayGun has been mocked online…
— chris mate 🍞 (@ChrisLXXXVI) August 11, 2024
That’s right, if a male breakdancer had bounced around like an epileptic kangaroo we’d have all cheered 🙄
pic.twitter.com/x6OF2XhCjz
They were mainly riffs on the entertainment value of the performance — namely, the laughter they could bring.
Some compared her moves to dances they made up as a kid and really wanted to show their family.
Raygun became a punchline, but a beloved punchline nonetheless.
“There has not been an Olympic performance this dominant since Usain Bolt’s 100m sprint at Beijing in 2008,” Trapper Haskins, a musician and writer, said on X. “Honestly, the moment Raygun broke out her Kangaroo move this competition was over! Give her the #breakdancing gold.”
Raygun, who is coached by her husband, Samuel Free, aka Sammy the Free, has spoken much in the media about the significance of breaking and her personal history with the sport.
“I think a lot of people had doubted my ability to do it and maybe thought I was getting too old to be able to stay on top,” she said in an interview for the Australian Olympic Team. “But I just kept pushing hard, I want to get better, and I want the scene to grow and get better.”
“Technical is a good way to describe me,” she told The Guardian of her approach to breaking and the Olympic scoring system. “‘Creative’ and ‘style,’ I think, are my strengths.”
However, Raygun’s passion for breaking extends beyond competition.
She’s a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney whose work examines the “cultural politics of breaking.”
Still, that passion did not win her favor with the judges at the Olympics, who named her opponent, Team USA b-girl Logistx, aka California’s Logan Edra, 21, the winner of their match.
Many have accused the professor of using the stage to protest the ‘institutionalization’ of breakdancing,’ given her scholarly work, which argues the subculture is at risk of being co-opted by officials, commercialized, and put through a rigid judging structure.’
Podcaster Hannah Berrelli claimed on X that Gunn was “trying to make some subversive point she can later write journal articles about.”
Berrelli wrote: “This whole episode is demonstrative of the supreme selfishness of woke identity politics studies. Her little stunt diminishes Australia on the world stage. Hundreds of Australian athletes who will have dedicated their entire lives to athletic excellence will be forgotten, because Rachael wanted to bulk up her ResearchGate profile.”
As for medal winners, the first gold in breaking went to Ami, a b-girl from Japan whose full name is Ami Yuasa.
And Raygun’s performance was certainly not the only viral moment from Olympic breaking.
Talash, a b-girl from the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, unfurled a cape that said “Free Afghan Women” during her performance Friday (see clip below).
Talash, 21, whose full name is Manizha Talash, hails from Kabul, Afghanistan.
At 18, she left the country for Pakistan with her breaking crew when the Taliban took over in 2021, placing restrictions on education, public life, music and dancing for women and girls. The crew later moved to Madrid, Spain as refugees.
Talash had been the only woman in her breaking crew in Kabul, which received bomb threats after she drew attention for her breaking.
They had to tell people that breaking is a sport before it was part of the Olympics “because dancing is prohibited,” Talash told the World DanceSport Federation.
“I didn’t leave Afghanistan because I’m afraid of the Taliban or because I can’t live in Afghanistan,” she said. “I left because I want to do what I can for the girls in Afghanistan, for my life, my future, for everyone.”
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup.
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