The Australian Professor Who Turned Breaking on Its Head Rachael Gunn, known as B-girl Raygun, displayed some…Read more

A woman wearing green track pants, a green polo shirt and a cap poses with her hand up in front of a judges table.
During the round robin on Friday, Rachael Gunn, also known as B-girl Raygun, performed a move that looked something like swimming and another that could best be described as duckwalking.

Breaking made its debut as an Olympic sport Friday, and among the competitors was Dr. Rachael Gunn, also known as B-girl Raygun, a 36-year-old professor from Sydney, Australia, who stood out in just about every way.

By day, her research interests include “dance, gender politics, and the dynamics between theoretical and practical methodologies.” But on the world’s stage in Paris, wearing green track pants and a green polo shirt instead of the street-style outfits of her much younger fellow breakers, she competed against the 21-year-old Logan Edra of the United States, known as Logistx.

During the round robin, as Raygun and Logistx faced off, Raygun laid on her side, reached for her toes, spun around, and threw in a kangaroo hop — a nod to her homeland. She performed a move that looked something like swimming and another that could best be described as duckwalking. The high-speed back and head spins that other breakers would demonstrate were mostly absent.

The crowd cheered Raygun politely. The judges weren’t as kind. All nine voted for Logistx in both rounds of the competition; Logistx won, 18-0.

Online, Raygun’s performance quickly became a sensation, not necessarily in a flattering way.

“The more I watch the videos of Raygun, the Aussie breaker, the more I get annoyed,” one viewer posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There’s 27.7 million Australians in the world and that’s who they send to the Olympics for this inaugural event??? C’mon now!”

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