Who Is Raygun? Olympic Breakdancer’s Memes and Controversy, Explained [Video]

Breaking made its debut at the 2024 Paris Olympics — and while she didn’t earn a spot on the podium, the Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, known as Raygun, has received plenty of recognition online.

Gunn is a 36-year-old lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney whose research focuses on the “cultural politics of breaking,” according to her faculty profile.

But Gunn’s time on the Olympic stage was short-lived. The B-girl was eliminated during the round-robin stage of the women’s breaking competition, losing in one-on-one battles to the United States’ Logistx, France’s Syssy, and Lithuania’s Nicka.

Raygun didn’t earn a point in any of those battles, but as clips of her performance spread online, she got something else: instant meme status. That online notoriety, however, paved the way for online harassment and misinformation about her Olympic qualification — and three months after the Olympics concluded, Gunn said that she was retiring from competition.

Here’s what you need to know about Raygun.

Before …