Ridicule over Olympic performance too much for breaker Gunn, who says she’s retiring
Rachael Gunn’s display in Paris, which included rolling on the floor, sparked conspiracy theories over how she had managed to qualify
Widely ridiculed Olympic break dancer Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has said she will retire from competition after the “upsetting” backlash to her pointless routine in Paris.
The Australian, whose performance over the summer spawned conspiracy theories about how she even managed to qualify for the Games, told a Sydney radio station she had initially planned to continue competing, but had changed her mind.
Breaking was being contested at an Olympics for the first time. And it might be a one-and-done, not scheduled on the Olympic programme for Los Angeles in 2028 or for Brisbane, Australia in 2032.
The now 37-year-old Sydney university lecturer failed to get on the scoreboard in all three of her competition rounds in August, with a routine that included unorthodox moves such as a kangaroo hop.
“I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she told 2DayFM. “I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now. I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”
In a television interview for The Project on Australia’s Channel 10 in September, she recalled being chased by cameras through the streets of the French capital and how she dealt with the very public reaction to her performance.
