Place de la Concorde · August 9, 2024
Zero Points in Paris
Breaking's first Olympic competition produced a gold medalist from Japan, a silver medalist from Lithuania, and a 36 year old university lecturer from Sydney who became more famous than both of them.
The sport
From a Bronx rec room to the Olympics
- DJ Kool Herc stretches the drum breaks of funk records at a party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. Dancers build moves for the breaks.
- Breaking appears at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.
- The IOC adds breaking to Paris 2024 to reach younger viewers.
- Los Angeles leaves breaking off the 2028 program. Paris will be its only Olympics for now.
The rules
Nine judges, two rounds, one vote each
In a battle, two dancers take turns to music the DJ picks live. Neither one knows the song until it starts. After every round, each of nine judges votes for one dancer. In the group stage a battle had two rounds, so 18 votes were up for grabs.
Be the panel
Reveal Raygun's six rounds one at a time. Every square is one judge's vote. Green would have been a vote for her.
The athlete
How a lecturer got to Paris
Rachael Gunn started breaking in her mid twenties. In 2017 she earned a PhD in cultural studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, writing about women in Sydney's mostly male breaking scene. By 2024 she taught there and competed as Raygun.
Every continent got Olympic spots. Oceania got one for b-girls. In October 2023 Gunn won the Oceania championship in Sydney, beating Molly Chapman in the final in front of nine international judges.
She followed the rules exactly. The rules sent the best b-girl in a small region to face the best in the world.
"She was trying to be original, bring something new to the table."Martin Gilian, the competition's head judge, after the backlash
The pile on
Rumor or record?
Within hours the kangaroo hop was a meme. Within days an anonymous Change.org petition with more than 45,000 signatures claimed she had rigged her way in. Australia's Olympic committee answered with a list of facts. Tap each claim.
0 of 4 checked
Olympic committee CEO Matt Carroll called the petition "vexatious, misleading and bullying." Change.org took it down on August 15, 2024.
August 15, 2024
"Please stop"
"I didn't realize that would also open the door to so much hate, which has, frankly, been pretty devastating."Rachael Gunn, video statement
She said she trained hard and took the Olympics seriously, and asked reporters to stop harassing her family, her friends and the breaking community.
Who actually won
Nicka beat Raygun in the group stage on her way to silver.
After Paris
Number one, then gone
- The world federation's rankings list Raygun as the number one b-girl on Earth. Olympic events did not count and many top breakers' points had expired.
- She retires from competition. "I just didn't have any control over how people saw me or who I was."
- She leaves her teaching job at Macquarie University.
- Netflix releases Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly. In the trailer she says she feared "the whole world could laugh at me."
Sources. Official results summary, AOC statement via The Nightly, SBS News, Al Jazeera, World DanceSport Federation, Team USA, Variety Australia. Videos play from YouTube.