Australian breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn fired back at her critics who mocked her viral performance and uniform at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Gunn, 36, lost all three of her group matches in the inaugural breaking tournament, where she fell to the US, France and Lithuania. But she still turned heads in France.
“Looking forward to the same level of scrutiny on what the b-boys wear tomorrow,” Gunn wrote on Instagram on Friday.
The Olympian’s fiery response comes in the wake of social media users ridiculing her green and yellow Australian Olympic tracksuit and a hat while her opponents opted for casual streetwear.
The International Olympic Committee allowed competitors to wear their custom uniform, which was submitted for review before the competition.
“Australia did B-Girl Raygun dirty with this ugly as sin outfit. Looking like she’s gonna ask if I want fries with that,” one X user said.
“Meanwhile Japanese Twitter is roasting Raygun because her outfit looks like the uniform of a Japanese courier company, yet she lost to Logistix,” another added.
Gunn didn’t receive a single vote from the nine judges, losing each match 18-0.
Judges scored breakers on technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality.
During her battle, Raygun bounced around the stage, stood on her head and rolled around on her shoulder at points.
She broke out a move called “the kangaroo,” paying homage to Australia’s national animal.
“Australia just set breakdancing back 40 years,” one X user wrote.
“There is no way I laugh harder for the rest of 2024 than after watching a 36-year-old Australian college professor named Raygun “breakdance” against teenagers
Outside of representing Australia at the Olympics, Gunn is a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, where she serves as an interdisciplinary and practice-based researcher interested in the cultural politics of breaking.
“Her work draws on cultural theory, dance studies, popular music studies, media, and ethnography,” according to the school.
She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies and a bachelors in Contemporary Music.
Gunn had embraced her style of breaking, sharing her quotes on social media.
“Don’t be afraid to be different, go out there and represent yourself, you never know where that’s going to take you,” she said.
She defended her performance, saying she displayed her creativity.
“All my moves are original,” she told reporters after her performance.
“I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get in a lifetime to do that on an international stage?” she told reporters.
“I was always the underdog and wanted to make my mark in a different way.”
