An Australian breakdancer’s bizarre performance at the Olympics has sparked claims she was using her time in the international spotlight to boost her academic career.
Rachael Gunn, whose stage name is RayGun, went viral around the world after the 36-year-old failed to score a single point in Paris on Friday.
The controversial performance included kangaroo hops, snake-like slithering and even the use of the ‘spray’ – an iconic Australian dance film often used by men who cannot dance.
It soon emerged that Gunn is a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney and holds a PhD. in cultural studies, focusing on “gender politics and gender performance” and “the methodological dynamics between theory and practice.”
Gunn’s LinkedIn page notes that she is “interested in the cultural politics of breakdancing.”
The 36-year-old Australian breaker suffered a disastrous performance at the Olympics
It soon emerged that Gunn is a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney and has a PhD in cultural studies.
Her scores have led to theories that Gunn used her Olympic debut to bolster her research work and show how the inclusion of breakdancing in the Olympics could negatively impact the sport in Australia.
Many have accused the professor of using the stage to protest against the “institutionalisation” of breakdancing, given her academic work, which argues that the subculture risks being co-opted by officials, commercialised and subjected to a rigid evaluation structure.
Podcaster Hannah Berrelli claimed on X that Gunn was “trying to make some subversive argument that he could then write magazine articles about.”
Berrelli wrote: “This whole episode demonstrates the ultimate selfishness of progressive identity politics studies. Their little stunt diminishes Australia on the world stage. Hundreds of Australian athletes who will have dedicated their entire lives to athletic excellence will be forgotten, because Rachael wanted to boost her profile on ResearchGate.”
CUNY sociology professor Devrim Yavuz had a similar view, writing: ‘I’m 98% convinced this is either a “breakup experiment” that #Raygun did as part of an ethnography on gender and sports at the #Olympics breakdancing competition or it’s performance art.’
SkyNews Editor Jack Houghton argued in an editorial that Gunn “had planned to turn his joke about an Olympic performance into some sort of article about one of the aforementioned academic buzzwords.”
Raygun became an overnight sensation for all the wrong reasons after failing to score a single point during breaking’s first appearance at the Olympics.
In his article, titled The Australian Breakdancing Scene and the Olympics: The Possibilities and Politics of Sportification, Gunn argues that this commercialisation goes against the spirit of breakdancing, which is rooted in local communities and centres on street battles, cyphers and block parties.
The document states: “This trajectory points towards an increasing loss of self-determination, agency and spontaneity for local Australian breakdancers and will have profound consequences for the way hip hop persona is constantly ‘remade and renegotiated’ in Australia.”
Indigenous leader and sports administrator Megan Davis also accused Gunn of intentionally ruining her performance at the Olympics, calling it a “disgrace.”
“Purposefully scoring zero points in three rounds for taxpayer-subsidised academic study at both university and Olympic level is not fun and is not ‘having a go’,” she said on social media via The Australian. “(It’s) disrespectful to other competitors.
Many have accused the teacher of using the stage to protest against the ‘institutionalisation’ of breakdancing.
The Australian has revealed that Gunn has not received any grants from the Australian Sports Commission or Macquarie University, and that the only public grant she received was in November 2022 – a one-year fee of $20,278 to lead a research study called ‘Spaces for Street Dance’.
Adding to the speculation about his true motives are Gunn’s own statements: he admitted after the event that he could not compete athletically with the tricks and spins of his younger opponents and that his intention had always been to highlight their “creativity.”
Gunn also said he will likely write about his Olympic experience once he has “recovered.”
Gunn qualified for the Olympics when he won the Oceania Breaking Championships in Australia in 2023.
RayGun was awarded the 2023 Australian Sports Star of the Year honour by youth publication Pedestrian.
According to her research profile, Gunn was the Australian Breaking Association’s highest-ranked bgirl (the term used for breakdancers) in 2020 and 2021.
She also competed in the World Breaking Championships in Paris in 2021, Seoul in 2022 and Leuven, Belgium, in 2023.
Gunn qualified for the Olympics when he won the Oceania Breaking Championships in Australia in 2023.
Despite the speculation, Gunn’s father-in-law, Andrew Free, took to social media on Saturday to complain about the judges, partly blaming them for his poor performance.
Meanwhile, in a show of support on Sunday, the breaking competition’s head judge Martin Gilian, known as MGbility, said Gunn embodied the spirit of the discipline in his efforts to be original.
And she revealed that the disbanded federation had offered her mental health support in the wake of the backlash.
“Breaking is all about originality, bringing something new and representing your country or region,” MGbility said at a press conference. “That’s exactly what Raygun was doing. He was inspired by his surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”
Chef de mission Anna Meares also says Gunn should be applauded for her courage, rather than ridiculed for her performance at the Paris Games.
Australia’s chef de mission in Paris, Anna Meares (pictured), said the criticism of Raygun was the same kind of misogynistic abuse that has been directed at generations of female athletes.
“I love Rachael,” Meares told reporters on Saturday. “She’s the best breakdancer we have in Australia.”
Meares compared the criticism to the historical misogynistic abuse directed at female athletes as they struggled for recognition in the sporting world.
“Now you look at the history of what we’ve had as female athletes, what we’ve faced in terms of criticism, belittlement, judgment and simple comments like ‘you shouldn’t be there,'” she said.
‘One hundred years ago, ahead of Paris 1924, Australia sent a team of 37 athletes (none of them women).
‘One hundred years later, we have 256 women representing here.’