Breakdancer ‘Raygun’ Hops Out

B-Girl Raygun of Team Australia competes during the B-Girls Round Robin - Group B on day 14 of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, on Aug. 9, 2024. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Controversial Australian breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn has announced her retirement from competition on a breakfast radio show, claiming the backlash that has followed her appearance at the Paris Olympics has taken a toll.

Her performance at the 2024 Games—in which she failed to score a single point, and did not progress past the first round of the competition—made her a worldwide sensation, inspiring countless memes and parody performances mimicking her routines, which included a “kangaroo hop” and “the sprinkler.”

But in Australia, it provoked widespread outrage over what was perceived as a national embarrassment and criticism of the selection process that saw the university lecturer selected for the Olympics ahead of other candidates.

A Change.org petition demanding she and Australian chef de mission Anna Meares be “held accountable” for the loss received over 45,000 signatures before being rejected by the Australian Olympic Committee, who called it “bullying and harassment.”

Online, the 37-year-old Gunn was the subject of intense criticism, as well as rumours that she and her husband had set up their own breakdancing selection governing body that guaranteed her nomination.

Future Competitions Would Be a ‘Battle’

“I still break, but I don’t compete. I’m not going to compete anymore,” Gunn said. “I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now to approach a battle.

“I still dance, and I still break. But, you know, that’s like in my living room with my partner! It has been really upsetting. I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was.

“Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good. I don’t think people should feel crap about the way that they dance. If you get out there, and you have fun on the dance floor then just own it,” she said.

Gunn laughed and replied “no” in response to a question about whether she would return to international competition should breaking, which made its Olympic debut in Paris but has been dropped for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there and the people who will be filming it and it’ll go online,” she said.

Gunn made Olympic selection by winning the World DanceSport Federation Oceania Championship and, according to that body, she is currently ranked the number one break-dancing athlete in the world.