Aussie Breakdancer Raygun Wins Over the Internet with 'Kangaroo' Moves at Paris Olympics

Mar. 15, 2025

Raygun competes during the Breaking B-Girls Round Robin Group B battle against Team USA’s Logistx.Photo:Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty

Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty

As breaking — a.k.a. breakdancing — marks its first year as an Olympic sport, one competitor from Australia has captured the internet’s attention with her moves.

Australian dancer Raygun, 36, garnered worldwide attention after she showed off some of her unique breaking moves at the women’s b-girl2024 Paris Olympicson Friday, Aug. 9 — and fans shared their jokes and compliments alike.

“I could live all my life and never come up with anything as funny as Raygun, the 36-year-old Australian Olympic breakdancer,” one X (formerly Twitter) userwrote above a photo of Raygun posing for the camera, wearing a color-coordinated tracksuit and baseball hat in Australia’s colors gold and green. The post garnered over 50,000 likes on X.

“There has not been an Olympic performance this dominant since Usain Bolt’s 100m sprint at Beijing in 2008,” anotherX userjoked. “Honestly, the moment Raygun broke out her Kangaroo move this competition was over! Give her the #breakdancing gold 🥇.”

Australia’s Rachael Gunn (R), known as Raygun competes against France’s Sya Dembele, known as Syssy.ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty

ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty

Olympics viewers also shared some footage of her routine itself, which critics said paled in comparison to some of her younger opponents' medal-winning moves.

One social media userjokedthat her moves described “me tryna get the duvet off when i’m too hot at night” and anotherwrotethey resembled “what my nephew does after telling all of us to ‘watch this.'”

Friday’s Round Robin competition saw each b-girl — the colloquial term for a breaker — and 16 b-boys battle against each other one-on-one as a panel of judges determined whose moves best matched the music.

“Athletes will use a combination of power moves—including windmills, the 6-step, and freezes—as they adapt their style and improvise to the beat of the DJ’s tracks in a bid to secure the judges’ votes and take home the first Olympic breaking medals,” theOlympics’ official websitestates of the breaking rule system.

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Although Raygun (whose real name is Rachael Gunn) eventuallylost her Round Robin-style competitionagainst Team USA’s b-girl Logistx, 21, France’s Syssy, 16, and Lithuania’s Nicka, 17, her competition is hardly the end of her breaking journey.

According to herOlympics profile, the 36-year-old is a university professor in Australia and was a jazz and ballroom dancer before she got into breaking. She even studies breaking in her work as a professor — according to her biography page forMacquarie University, located in Sydney. She works as a lecturer, studying “the cultural politics of breaking.”

“It is such an honor and a privilege to be, you know, one of sixteen women from around the world competing in breaking’s debut at the Olympics,” Gunn said in anInstagram videoshared on Thursday. “I hope that seeing breaking at the Olympics inspires a whole new generation of breakers.”

source: people.com