Raygun Officially Quits Competitive Breakdancing Following Paris 2024 Olympics Backlash

Australian dancer Rachael Gunn went viral for her performance at Paris 2024.

Rachael Gunn, known to fans as Raygun, has announced she’s leaving competitive breakdancing after her Olympic performance went viral and caught massive attention worldwide.

Even if you’re not into sports, you’ve probably come across clips from Raygun’s big moment at Paris 2024, where she competed in the women’s breaking event to represent Australia.

Her unique, daring moves put her right in the spotlight, and soon social media was flooded with clips and pictures from her performance, sparking a mix of reactions—some nicer than others.

With her face now known around the world, Raygun appeared on the Jimmy & Nath Show on November 5 to look back on the whirlwind experience.

In that interview, she shared that she’s made the choice to step away from breakdancing competitions.

Raygun explained her decision, saying: “I’d still break, but I’m not going to compete anymore. I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult thing for me to do now, to approach a battle … I mean, I still dance and I still break but, that’s like in my livingroom with my partner.”

The dancer mentioned that her Olympic appearance had brought a new “level of scrutiny” to her competitions that she hadn’t dealt with before, adding: “People will be filming it and it will go online, and it’s just got not going to mean the same thing. It’s not going to be the same experience because of everything that’s at stake.”

Then, on November 7, Raygun appeared on Australia’s The Project, where she clarified that she’s not retiring from dance entirely—just moving away from the spotlight of high-stakes competitions.

She explained further: “I was talking about competing, and yeah, I don’t really see myself competing anymore. And then, like, ‘Global news: Raygun is retiring,’ and it just kind of has gotten a little bit out of hand.”

“Raygun’s not retiring,” she continued, emphasizing that she’s still very much a part of the dance community. “But I think I mean, because it’s different in breaking culture, I’m still going to dance, and I said that in the interview. I’m still going to dance, I’m still going to go to community jams. I’m still probably going to get down and and dance and enter a community jam, things like that.”

“But in terms of those elite competitions, and the Olympics, which by the way, breaking is not even in the Olympics in the next one, so it kind of turned into a really big thing today.”

In 2022, it was confirmed that 28 sports would be included in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but unfortunately, breakdancing wasn’t one of them.

 

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