Australian breakdancer Raygun has retired from the sport, professionally speaking, after being widely ridiculed for her performance at this year’s Olympics.
Raygun (real name Rachael Gunn) announced her decision while appearing on the Jimmy & Nath Show in her home country, where she ruled out competing in future competitions.
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When asked if she’ll return for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles (which won’t actually feature breakdancing), Raygun replied with a laugh: “No!”
She added: “I still break, but I don’t compete. I’m not going to compete anymore, no.”
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The 37-year-old, who is a full-time lecturer at a university in Sydney, admitted that she was planning to continue competing, but after the Olympics “that seems a really difficult thing for me to do now, to approach a battle […] the level of scrutiny that will be there.”
“I still dance and I still break, but that’s in my living room with my partner,” she joked.
Raygun catapulted to global fame this past summer after performing a series of bizarre dance moves during the Olympics’ inaugural breakdancing competition in Paris.
Her unorthodox routine, which failed to score a single point, included waving her arms around, flailing on the floor and even bouncing on her feet like a kangaroo — leading to a flood of jokes and memes online.
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Beyond the amusement and bemusement from viewers around the world, Gunn was criticized by those in the breakdancing community and even prominent Hip Hop figures such as Dr. Dre.
“I did not like that. It’s so many great breakdancers that I don’t know why they had this particular person doing that,” the N.W.A legend said during an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“It was funny, I got some laughs out of it, but what the fuck? […] There are incredible breakdancers out right now; I don’t know how that happened.”
Addressing the backlash on the Jimmy & Nath Show, Raygunn said: “It’s surreal and it’s still impossible to process […] But I just try and stay on the positives, that’s what gets me through.
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“The people that have [been] like, ‘You have inspired me to go out there and do something that I’ve been too shy to do. You’ve brought joy, you’ve brought laughter, we’re so proud of you.’ And just really frickin’ lovely things that people have written. That’s what I hold on to.”
