Raygun officially quits competitive breakdancing after facing Olympics backlash
Australian dancer Rachael Gunn went viral for her performance at Paris 2024
Rachael Gunn, who's better known by Raygun, has confirmed her decision to quit competitive breakdancing after her appearance at the Olympics made her go viral.
You don't even have to be interested in sports to be familiar with Raygun's Paris 2024 moment, when she appeared in the women's breaking competition to represent her country, Australia.
The breakdancer's out-of-the-box moves shot her into the spotlight, with many social media users sharing clips and images from her time on the stage - some with nicer comments than others.
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After her face became recognized across the globe, Raygun appeared on the Jimmy & Nath Show on November 5 and reflected back on the experience.
She then announced that she's decided to stop breakdancing competitively.
Raygun said: "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 living room with my partner."
The dancer pointed out that her performance at the Olympics meant she'd now face a 'level of scrutiny' at competitions that she hadn't faced in the past, 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."
Today (November 7), Raygun followed up with an appearance on Australia's The Project where she explained that she wasn't retiring altogether - just stepping out of the spotlight.
She said: "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," the dancer continued. "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."
It was announced in 2022 that 28 sports had been approved for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but breakdancing was not one of them.
Topics: Olympics, Australia, Viral, Social Media, Raygun
Emily Brown