Who is the viral breakdancer at the Olympics? Explained.

After much fanfare and fans getting to witness some spectacular feats of athleticism and skill, the Paris Olympics came to a conclusion last weekend.

In a competition where athletes from various disciplines stood out for their remarkable dominance in their respective sports, there was one name that went viral on social media for, well, putting it bluntly, being not so good in her event. The person in question is Australia’s Rachael Gunn, who represented her country in Breaking, which was introduced in this year’s Olympics.

Gunn, who participates under the name Raygun, went viral last Friday when a clip of her performing her routine in the round-robin stage of the women’s breaking competition ended up on the internet. The routine sparked a flurry of memes and funny responses on social media websites, some done respectfully while some were … unkind.

Gunn was competing against participants from the United States, France, and Lithuania, and was knocked out without scoring a single point. Gunn is a lecturer at Macquarie University in the Faculty of Arts in the department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature. An avid breakdancer, she also tried her hand at ballroom, tap, and jazz styles as a child before her husband, Samuel Free, spurred her to take up breakdancing in her mid-twenties.

The 36-year-old had to sideline breakdancing while pursuing her Ph. D., which focused on drawing gender-based observations in Sydney’s breakdancing b-boying/b-girling scenes. She resumed in 2018, finding success in 2022 and 2023, when she was ranked second and first, respectively, in the Open Bgirl Rankings. She has been competing for Australia in breakdancing competitions for close to three years now, making appearances at the 2021 World Breaking Championships in Paris, the 2022 Championships in Seoul, and the 2023 event in Belgium.

While there have been multiple eyebrows raised over Raygun’s claim to be the Australian representative at the Paris Olympics, it is important to note that she won the Oceania Breaking Championships in 2023, effectively booking a ticket to the City of Light as per the qualifying rules.

Despite being relentlessly trolled, Gunn has remained a beacon of positivity, and here’s hoping that she continues to live her passion in the future.