Raygun retires from breaking after Olympic backlash

Rachael Gunn, the reigning champion of Australia, has announced that she will stop competing because of the positive feedback she received at the Paris Olympics.

In all three of her competition rounds in August, Gunn, who is known as “B-girl Raygun,” was eliminated with a routine that included unusual moves like the sprinkler and a kangaroo hop.

The 37-year-old university lecturer’s moves catapulted her to global attention and ridicule, spawned conspiracy theories about her qualification, and reignited criticism of breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics.

She told the local radio station 2DayFM on Wednesday that she simply “didn’t have any control over how people perceived me or who I was.”

“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now.

” I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there, and people will be filming it, and it will go online. “

After the Olympics, Gunn received a lot of violent messages and was the subject of an anonymous petition in which she was asked to apologize. It falsely claimed that her husband and her husband manipulated her selection to the detriment of other Australian talent.

Due to the creative nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organized competition, it also rekindled debates over whether breaking, which debuted in Paris but isn’t on the schedule for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, should have ever been an Olympic event.

Gunn has previously claimed that the backlash, which she once again made an allusion to on Wednesday, made the sport less enjoyable.

” Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good. I don’t believe that dancing should cause people to feel bad.