Raygun realized before Olympics that she was out of her depth as husband details her 'exhaustion'
Two years on from gaining viral fame at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Raygun has been speaking about her preparations for the games.
While there were many talking points from the last summer Olympics, one of the biggest was that of Raygun, real name Rachael Gunn.
She became the center of a media frenzy after competing in the breakdancing event, which saw the Olympian busting out some rather unconventional moves.
On top of that, she lost her three first-round battles by a total score of 54-0, as hundreds of memes appeared online.
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Two years on from the experience, Gunn is speaking about the experience in the latest installment of Netflix's sports scandal docuseries Untold, in an episode titled Raygun: Breaking Badly.
The athlete admitted that the response to her Olympics performance had been 'pretty devastating', as she detailed her preparations for the Olympics.
Gunn hadn’t worked out regularly prior to preparing for the Olympics, so spent the nine months before the games trying to get in to shape.
With her husband as her coach, Gunn soon realized she was out of her depth.
"It had become obvious to us that we weren’t even gonna win one [dance] battle at the Olympics," Samuel Free, Gunn's husband, said on the Netflix show.
As per Page Six, Free and Gunn set a more 'realistic' goal of getting just one vote of the nine judges, which unfortunately, they didn't manage to do.
Free detailed in Netflix's Untold that his wife was dealing with 'physical exhaustion, cognitive exhaustion, and emotional exhaustion' in the months leading up to the Olympics and that she was prescribed antidepressants to help manage her symptoms.
Two years on, Gunn is still 'saddened' by the whole thing.
"It really saddened me to see how many women decided to hate on me. It was a hot topic talking point to rip into me," she said.
There was even conspiracy theories online that Free was part of the Australian Olympic Committee and ultimately rigged his wife's entry.
In the Netflix documentary, Free has shut down such speculation.
"This misinformation is getting a lot of traction," Free said. "I wasn’t a judge. I was never on any selection committee.”
Gunn announced her retirement from dancing in November 2024 following the 'really upsetting' response to her Olympics debut.
Speaking on the Jimmy & Nath Show, she said: "I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now, to approach a battle.
"I mean, I still dance and I still break but, that's like in my living room with my partner."
Despite her retirement, the Olympian began appearing at dance events again in 2025.
“I know for sure I’m never gonna stop dancing,” she declared.
Callum Jones