The inside story of how Raygun broke into the Olympics
By Frances Howe
Rachael Gunn was not expected to make headlines at the Olympics, but now, under her b-girl moniker Raygun, she has easily become one of the most talked about – and divisive – athletes of the Paris Games. Her kangaroo-inspired breaking moves, unique floor work, patriotic tracksuit, and the way she crashed out of the competition have been shared across millions of group chats and social feeds all over the world.
In Australia, some have asked how the 36-year-old Macquarie University academic was selected for the Games, and there are suggestions that perhaps she unfairly took the spot away from some up-and-coming talent.
In an interview with this masthead before heading to Paris, Gunn laid out the selection process. “I won the Oceania qualifier, and by winning that competition, I got the direct spot to Paris,” she said. “That was a really intense, really stressful but really amazing competition.”
But the inner workings of Australia’s breaking community, the selection process itself and the fact Australia could have taken up to four competitors are little known. Here’s the backstory of how Raygun became a global sensation.
Who runs breaking in Australia?
The journey to qualification began in 2019 when the Australian Breaking Association (ABA) was founded by two-time Australian-Oceania Battle of the Year champion Lowe Napalan. There was a buzz in the breaking world that it could be announced as an official Olympic sport. Without an established national body to nominate an Olympic team, Napalan registered the ABA as a charity and selected a group of veteran Australian breakers to lead it.
After confirmation of breaking’s Olympic status came in December 2020, the ABA announced it would begin taking registrations for dancers wanting to be considered for selection. Napalan and the ABA began hosting breaking competitions and introduced a national ranking system to help scout for talent.
In 2021, the first year that rankings had been introduced, Gunn was ranked first out of 26 registered women.
Who got to go to Paris?
The World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF) published its qualification system in April 2022, which included three qualification events for Australians: the WDSF World Championships, the Oceania Championships and the Olympic Qualifier Series. Up to two men and two women could be selected to represent Australia in the Games.
The ABA, now known as Ausbreaking, chose two Australian women to compete at the first qualifier: the World Championships in Belgium in September last year. Gunn, who had ranked first in 2021 and second in 2022 and 2023, was sent to Belgium along with Molly Chapman, who had ranked second in 2021, first in 2022, and fourth in 2023.
The winner would automatically qualify for Paris. Chapman finished in 79th place out of 80 entrants, and Gunn finished in 64th, meaning neither qualified.
How was Gunn selected?
The next possible opportunity for Australians to qualify for breaking would be to win the WDSF Oceania Championships held at Sydney’s Town Hall that October. Registration was open to the public to anyone eligible to compete in the Olympics, regardless of Australian rankings.
The competition featured a 10-judge panel of professional breakers, including judges from Japan and South Korea. There were 37 male and 15 female entrants.
On the first day of the competition, Gunn walked away as the highest-scoring woman as the pool was reduced to a final eight competitors.
On day two, Gunn defeated three competitors, including Chapman, in the last round to win and qualify for the Olympics.
The final opportunity to qualify for Paris was the Olympic qualifier series held in Shanghai and Budapest earlier this year. Three Australian women competed, including Chapman, but none qualified.
What do breakers think of this process?
Breakers this masthead has spoken to expressed a lack of interest in the sport’s place at the Olympics. Most did not want to speak publicly to avoid being seen as critical of the sport or of Raygun, but one of Australia’s current top-10 female breakers said they weren’t a fan of the current selection process. However, they still expressed support for Gunn.
Credit: Matt Golding
Lucas Marie, a breaker on the Ausbreaking selection committee, said the small pool of breakers participating in qualifiers reflected the size of the current scene and the resources that Ausbreaking had to reach new dancers.
“There would be nothing exclusive that I can think of about those events that isn’t open to the best dancers from across Australia and New Zealand”, he said.
“However, I would say that Ausbreaking is not well funded by the government. There’s been really little funding for us to enable diverse communities to participate. Of course, there’s kids who maybe didn’t know it was on or maybe didn’t travel.
“Ausbreaking is literally community-run by Lowe [Napalan]; he has a full-time job [and] this isn’t something that he can do alone.”
Gunn, at least, is very aware of her fortune in being able to qualify, telling this masthead before the Games: “I’m so lucky to have this opportunity honestly – lucky to be at this point in my career in breaking, lucky that we got an Oceania qualifier, lucky that it gets to be in Paris.”
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