Honestly, the internet is a brutal place. We all remember those few days in August 2024 when you couldn't scroll through your feed without seeing a woman in a green tracksuit doing a "kangaroo hop" on a world-class stage. Rachael Gunn, famously known as Raygun, became a global punchline almost overnight.
She walked away from the Paris 2024 Olympics with zero points and a lifetime's worth of memes. People were angry. They were confused. They felt like the "integrity" of breaking—a dance form born in the Bronx—had been dragged through the mud by a 36-year-old academic from Sydney.
But here is the thing: the story you saw on TikTok wasn't the whole story.
It's 2026 now, and the dust has finally settled. Looking back, the saga of the Olympic breakdancer Raygun isn't just about a bad performance. It's about a bizarre collision of academic theory, a niche sport’s growing pains, and the terrifying power of the "viral" cycle.
The 0-Point Performance: Why It Happened
Let's get the facts straight. In Paris, Raygun lost all three of her round-robin battles. She faced off against Logistx (USA), Syssy (France), and Nicka (Lithuania). The final score across the board? 18–0.
She didn't land a single point.
Most people saw the "sprinkler" and the "kangaroo" and thought she was mocking the sport. They thought she was a prankster. Actually, she was doing exactly what her PhD thesis suggested: she was trying to "move differently."
A PhD in Breaking?
Rachael Gunn isn't just a dancer; she’s a lecturer at Macquarie University. Her 2017 thesis was titled "Deterritorializing Gender in Sydney's Breakdancing Scene." Basically, she spent years studying how women navigate the hyper-masculine world of hip-hop.
She knew she couldn't out-power the 18-year-old athletes who live in the gym. She literally told the press, "I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best—the dynamic and the power moves." So, she leaned into "artistic" and "creative" choices.
It backfired. Spectacularly.
The judges weren't looking for a postmodern critique of gender roles; they were looking for technical execution, musicality, and vocabulary. When she did the kangaroo hop, they saw a lack of foundation.
The Conspiracy Theories vs. The Reality
When a story goes this viral, the rumors start flying. You probably heard that she "stole" the spot or that her husband was the judge.
That stuff was fake.
💡 You might also like: Georgia Southern App State: Why This Rivalry Hits Different
- The Qualifier: She won the 2023 Oceania Breaking Championships fair and square. She beat out other Australian b-girls in a sanctioned event.
- The Judges: The panel for that qualifier consisted of nine independent international judges. Her husband, Samuel Free (who is also a breaker), was not on that panel.
- The Selection: The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) confirmed her selection was legitimate.
The problem wasn't "corruption." The problem was that the Australian b-girl scene was, at the time, incredibly small. As Catherine Tsang, a former b-girl, pointed out in 2024, many talented dancers didn't have the money or the passports to register for the required qualifying bodies. Raygun was the best of who showed up.
Life After the "Kangaroo Hop"
By late 2024, the pressure became too much. In November of that year, Gunn officially announced her retirement from competitive breaking.
"I still dance and I still break," she told a Sydney radio station, "but that’s, like, in my living room with my partner."
She spoke about the "panic" of being chased through the streets of Paris by cameras. It wasn't just fun and games anymore. The scrutiny had sucked the joy out of the dance for her. She even had to deal with a cancelled musical about her life—Raygun: The Musical—after her legal team stepped in over intellectual property concerns regarding her "kangaroo" silhouette.
The World Number One Quirk
Here’s a detail that still confuses people: in September 2024, shortly after the Olympics, the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) actually ranked Raygun as the World Number One b-girl.
Wait, what?
It sounds like a joke, but it was just a math error in the ranking system. Most major events from the previous year had "expired" in the points system, and because she won the Oceania Championships (which carried a lot of weight), she ended up at the top of the list for a hot minute. The WDSF had to issue a massive clarification to explain why an Olympic 0-pointer was suddenly the queen of the sport.
The Impact on Australian Breaking
The "Raygun effect" was a double-edged sword for the local scene.
On one hand, the sport got more visibility than ever. On the other, the actual breakers—the ones who spend 40 hours a week on their head—felt like they became a laughingstock.
"How do I go to work now and try to get sponsorship?" asked one Australian b-girl in the wake of the games. The community felt like years of hard work to be taken seriously as athletes were undone in a three-minute routine.
However, by 2025 and 2026, things started to shift. The curiosity stayed. More young girls in Australia actually started looking into breaking classes. The "spectacle" of Raygun led to a genuine interest in the real athletes like Jeff Dunne (J-Attack), who also represented Australia and showed what the country could actually do.
What You Can Learn From the Raygun Saga
If there is a takeaway here, it's about the difference between theoretical expertise and competitive reality. Rachael Gunn approached the Olympics like an academic presenting a paper. She wanted to challenge "what a body can do."
But the Olympics isn't a lecture hall. It’s an arena.
If you're a creator, an athlete, or just someone trying something new, there are a few practical lessons to pull from this:
👉 See also: Shawn Reed Crash Video: What Really Happened at Pacific Raceways
- Know your audience: Innovation is great, but in a judged competition, you have to hit the "required" markers before you can get weird.
- The "Niche" Trap: If you're the best in a very small pool, your flaws will be magnified when you move to a bigger pool. Always seek competition that humbles you before you hit the big stage.
- Resilience is key: Despite the global hate, Gunn stood by her "artistic" vision for months. You don't have to like her dance to respect the fact that she didn't just crawl into a hole and disappear immediately.
Breaking won't be in the LA 2028 Olympics. It might never be back. In a way, Raygun will always be the face of that "one time breaking was in the Olympics." Whether that's a tragedy or a comedy depends entirely on who you ask.
For Rachael Gunn, she's back to being Dr. Gunn. She's lecturing, researching, and—presumably—dancing in her living room where nobody is holding up a scorecard.
If you want to understand the actual athleticism of the sport beyond the memes, go watch the 2024 gold medal battle between Ami and Nicka. That’s the "real" breaking that the world missed while they were busy laughing at the kangaroo.