Australia B-Girl Raygun Goes Viral For Olympic Performance & It’s Probably OK To Leave Breakdancing Out Of The Olympics (2024)

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What happened with Raygun at the Olympics? ›

Australian b-girl Raygun has addressed criticism over her breaking dance moves at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The sport of breaking made its Olympic debut in Paris — it might never be back — and one of the lasting images was Raygun's performance who did a “kangaroo dance” and scored zero points.

Rachael Gunn, known as "Raygun," is an Australian B-girl (break-girl) who competed at the Olympics. She lost three battles in the round-robin part of the competition, but her moves went viral online. Here's what to know about Gunn, a dancer and academic who studies breaking.

The Australian breakdancer, whose real name is Rachael Gunn, made headlines after her performance on Aug. 9 as some critics called out her unique dance moves.

And now, Australian competitor Rachael Gunn (known as “Raygun”) is one of the most famous Olympians from any nation – as well as Australia's most famous dancer. Her performance generated an onslaught of (often negative) social media memes, comments and bullying.

Breaking made its Olympic debut at the Paris Games in 2024. Despite breaking being a breakout hit of the Paris Games last week, the sport will not be returning to the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. The decision was actually made years ago not to include breaking.

The Los Angeles Olympic organizers chose not to include the sport in 2023 because it did not fit their vision for the Games. It had nothing to do with any of the breakdancer's performances.

Sky News Digital Editor Jack Houghton has questioned why Australia's Olympics committee sent a 36-year-old academic like Rachael 'Raygun' Gunn to Paris over a breakdancer like Holy Molly.

An academic at Sydney's Macquarie University with a PhD in cultural studies, Raygun kangaroo hopped and slithered around the stage in Paris in her Aussie team tracksuit. Now Raygun has found herself at the centre of a cultural moment, giving her no shortage of new academic material.

In the end, Captain Sandy wants Raygan to keep trying because the yachting industry needs more women in leadership positions, telling her, “Don't give up.” You can hear from Raygan following the firing in the clip above.

B-Girl Laneski, (born Lane Davey), was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1970. Later moving to Seattle, she enrolled in a breakdancing class in 1983, taught by the Seattle Circuit Breakers. The group was impressed with her dancing skills and subsequently gave her the name LaneSki.

Was Raygun for real? ›

Raygun, real name Rachael Gunn, instantly became a viral sensation — notoriety that only skyrocketed when the public learned that Gunn, who won none of her Olympics battles, actually has a PhD in breakdancing.

When not breaking, Gunn, who holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies, is a researcher and lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, where she studies the "the cultural politics of breaking," according to her university biography.

In 2009, the whole company was up to 10 employees before it split into 2-sides: the retail and printing on one side (which we renamed from SMASH to RAYGUN that year), and the custom printing on the other side.

Porter was a scientist that was a member of the secret Group 935, and invented the "Porter's X2 Ray Gun", the "Porter's X2 Zap Gun", and the "Porter's Mark II Ray Gun", Pack-a-Punched versions of the Ray Gun, Wave Gun, and Ray Gun Mark II, respectively. He is heard in a radio in the map Der Riese.

The intensely exciting Skeleton, previously just a men's event, was removed from the Olympic competition list between 1948 and 2002 with the head-first discipline deemed far too risky for participants.

United States skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin was taken to a local hospital following a crash in the women's downhill event in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy on Friday. Shiffrin, 28, was in the middle of her run when she lost control of her skis and crashed into the nets that surrounded the slope.

In 1980, the United States led a boycott of the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow to protest the late 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In total, 65 nations refused to participate in the games, whereas 80 countries sent athletes to compete.

She didn't even qualify for Paris until the Oceania championships in Sydney, Australia where everything changed. Somehow, Gunn managed to wipe out all of the competition and took home a number one ranking and finally qualified for the Olympic Games, according to CNN.