Viral Australian breaker Raygun accused of fixing Olympic qualifier

There were plenty of memorable moments at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Simone Biles celebrated her triumphant Olympic return. Noah Lyles narrowly won the 100 m. The Turkish shooter with the coolest shooting position of all time.

And then there’s “Kangaroo Dance” by Raygun.

Australian Olympic breakdancer Raygun (aka Rachael Gunn) caused a sensation with her unorthodox dance, with many people online claiming they could copy it.

While this was met with laughter from most, others saw it as an insult to the sport and the Olympics in general. In fact, one critic who described himself as “someone who hates corruption” created a petition calling for Gunn and Australian Olympic Committee President Anna Meares to be held accountable.

The Change.org petition accuses Raygun of rigging the selection process and disqualifying other competitors because she “founded her own governing body for breakdancing.” The petition goes on to say that she won her own qualifying match, which was influenced by her husband, who was the Olympic team's coach.

The petition calls for a public apology from Gunn and Meares, as well as a full investigation into the selection process, “an audit of Dr. Gunn's business dealings,” and a global apology to the breaking community. As of this writing, the petition has more than 40,000 signatures.

There's just one problem. None of this seems to be true.

Not only were Gunn and Meares' names consistently misspelled in the petition, a recent in-depth investigation by Vox's Aja Romano proved that none of the claims in the petition are true. Gunn is not the founder of AUSBreaking, the “governing body” for Australian breakdancing.

Furthermore, she and her husband Samuel Free had no say in who was included on the team. In fact, the full list of judges for the Oceania Breaking Championships, which served as a qualifying tournament, is available online.

One of the qualifier judges, Te Hiiritanga Wepiha, declared that she had legitimately won the competition, even providing a 90-minute commentary on Instagram declaring her victory.

In addition, numerous other breakers supported Gunn, including the experienced New Zealand breaker Dujon Cullingford.

“This happens when people outside our dance want to control the action but have absolutely no technical knowledge of our dance, especially in the Oceanic context,” Cullingford said.

Another person supporting Gunn is Olympic chief referee Martin Gilian, who goes by the name MGbility.

“Breaking is about originality and bringing something new and representing your country or region,” MGbility said at a press conference. “That's exactly what Raygun did. She was inspired by her surroundings, which in this case was a kangaroo, for example.”

“We have five criteria in the judging system for the competition (technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, originality) and her level may not have been as high as the other competitors. But again, that means she was really bad. She did her best. She won the Oceania qualifier. … Unfortunately, the other B-girls were better.”

Looking at the scores, Raygun didn't completely fail. When she competed against Logistx from the US, some judges gave her higher marks in the vocabulary and originality categories.

Were her actions silly? Yes. Was it her? Also yes. Did she manipulate her way to the Olympics? Absolutely not.

More Olympic Games: Fact check: Has Raygun Breaking been removed from the 2028 LA Olympics?