PARIS– The disruption community wants the world to give b-girl Raygun a break as the Paris Olympics wrapped.
The sport made its Olympic debut in Paris – it may never return – and one of the lasting images was the performance of an Australian b-girl known as Raygun who did a “kangaroo dance” and scored zero points.
In a show of support on Sunday, the breakdance competition’s head judge said the 36-year-old university professor Rachel Gunn I was just trying to be original. And the federation says it has offered mental health support following online criticism.
“Breaking is all about originality and bringing something new to the table and representing your country or region,” said head judge Martin Gilian – known as MGbility – at a press conference. “That’s exactly what Raygun was doing. She was inspired by the environment around her, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”
The break and hip-hop communities “definitely support her,” he added.
“We have five criteria in the competitive judging system and just her level was maybe not as high as the other competitors,” MGbility said. “But again, that doesn’t mean she did too bad. She did her best. She won the Oceania qualifiers… Unfortunately for her, the other b-girls were better.”
Sergey Nifontov, secretary general of the World DanceSport Federation, said they had been in direct contact with Gunn and Australian Olympic team officials.
“We offer the support of our safeguarding officer. We are aware of what happened, especially on social media, and we must definitely put athlete safety, in this case mental safety, first,” he said. “She has us as a federation supporting her.”
Breaking – known by many as break dancing, a term that its artists do not like – is not on the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The next Summer Games will be in Brisbane, Australia.
“We believe this has nothing to do with our chances for Brisbane 2032,” Nifontov said when asked about the criticism of Raygun and a return to the Olympics.
Japanese Ami Yuasa, better known as b-girl Ami, won the gold medal and said she wished Los Angeles organizers had waited to feel the energy among the athletes and the crowd at Place de la Concorde.
“I’m very sad that this didn’t happen in Los Angeles, because breaking was born in the USA,” she said on Sunday. “Breaking is not just a sport, it is also expressing myself and expressing myself.”
Federation President Shawn Tay championed the evolution — from what began as an art form in the 1970s in the Bronx to an Olympic appearance. Critics questioned the commercialization of the sport.
“We were warned from the beginning that some of the breakers – the main breakers – might not participate,” he said. “But now we can bring them all in – we have all the best breakers. Now they are fighting for the glory of their country – it’s a totally different thing. And that really pushed them to improve a lot, to work hard in a more scientific way.”
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