Australian breakdancer Raygun denounces ‘alarming’ backlash over Olympics

For the first time since her viral Olympic performance, Australian breakdancer Rachel “Raygun” Gunn sat down for an interview to discuss the backlash she received online during the 2024 Summer Games.

“It’s very sad to hear that criticism and I’m very sorry for the backlash that the community has suffered,” Gunn, 37, tells Australia 10 News in a new interview that aired Wednesday. “But I can’t control how people react.”

Gunn, 37, has yet to return to Australia since the viral performance, according to the news channel.

In Paris, Gunn lost all three of her competitions by a combined score of 54-0 and became the butt of online jokes, mocking the sport and her performance, which included several nods to her home country, including at one point when Gunn began hopping like a kangaroo.

“It was really sad how much hate it generated,” Gunn says in the interview. “And a lot of the responses are also because people aren’t very familiar with breaking and the diversity of approaches that exist to it. The energy and vitriol that people showed was pretty alarming.”

Gunn, a breakdancing teacher at Macquarie University in Sydney, also studies “the cultural politics of breaking” in her profession.

In the interview with Australia 10 News, Gunn also defended her inclusion on Australia’s Olympic roster, when asked if she is the best breakdancer her country could have sent to the Summer Games.

“I think my record speaks to that,” Gunn says, noting that she is the “top-ranked” breaker in Australia in 2020, 2022 and 2023. “The record is there, but anything can happen in a battle.”

Last month, an online petition gathered more than 50,000 signatures amid unfounded allegations that Gunn had cheated his way into the Olympics by manipulating the selection process.

In his interview on Wednesday, Gunn dismissed the allegations as “conspiracy theories” and called them “just horrible.”

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“It was very upsetting, because it wasn’t just people who didn’t understand what breaking was and were angry about my performance,” she says. “It’s people who are now attacking our reputation and our integrity. And none of it was based on any kind of facts. People still don’t believe in the truth, but… I think that’s going to be part of our reality, unfortunately.”

In an Instagram post last month, Gunn said that despite the “devastating” criticism she received for her performance, it was still “an honour and a privilege to be one of sixteen women from around the world competing in breaking’s debut at the Olympics.”