Australian Olympian breakdancer Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has announced she is officially retiring from breaking competitively after the backlash from her 2024 Olympic performance.
37-year-old Gunn announced the news in an interview this morning, saying “I still break, but I don’t compete. I’m not going to compete any more.”
“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now to approach a battle.”
Raygun captured global attention with her Olympic performance at the Paris Games, where she failed to score in all three of her competition rounds and gained backlash for her questionable moves – like a ‘kangaroo hop’.
The Olympian, who has a PhD in gender studies and cultural studies related to breakdancing, was the subject of vicious criticism online, with people questioning how she qualified and whether the sport should still be included in the games.
Gunn cited that the performance was her main reason for retiring and that she initially planned to keep competing but the situation had been so ‘upsetting’.
“It’s been really upsetting. I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she said.
“I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online.”
While Breaking made it’s Olympic debut at the games in Paris, the sport will not be included in the program for the Los Angeles in 2028.
