Steve Price: Australian PM Anthony Albanese defends under fire breakdancer Olympian Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn

Australian political leaders have leapt to the defence of Rachael Gunn as the Olympic team closes ranks behind the under fire breakdancer.

The 36-year-old, known as Raygun, failed to score a point when breaking made its debut as an Olympic sport in Paris on Friday.

Vision of the Macquarie University lecturer’s performance sent social media into a spin and raised questions about the sport’s validity.

Back home, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commended Gunn when asked about criticism of her routine.

“Raygun had a crack, good on her, and a big shout out to her,” he told reporters in Adelaide on Sunday.

“That is in the Australian tradition of people having a go. She’s had a go representing our country, and that’s a good thing.

“Whether they’ve won gold medals or just done their best, that’s all we asked for. It’s the participating that is really important.”

Breakdancing has been dropped from the programme for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, with no guarantee it will return at Brisbane in 2032 or beyond.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she had enjoyed watching the sport and suggested Raygun was a champion already as someone chosen to represent their nation on the world stage.

“To quote Taylor (Swift), let the haters hate and let’s just get on celebrate our Olympians’ success,” she said in Melbourne.

Chef de mission Anna Meares was similarly supportive of Gunn, condemning comments from “trolls and keyboard warriors”.

“I love her character and I feel very disappointed for her that she has come under the attack that she has,” she said.

Gunn lost all three of her round-robin battles by a combined score of 54-0 and admitted post-event that she couldn’t compete athletically with the tricks and spins of her younger opponents.

“What I wanted to do was come out here and do something new and different and creative - that’s my strength, my creativity,” she said.

Gunn has published a doctoral thesis entitled Deterritorialising Gender in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene: A B-girl’s Experience of B-boying.

The thesis questioned why so few female participants were part of the male-dominated scene but spoke of the sport as a “space that embraces difference”.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Steve Price's Weather's very good morning to you, Stephen.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Welcome to a new week, and you two now.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
A great deal of upset in this country over you
and comments you made. Are you in a position as
we speak to you this Monday morning to know what
I am referring to?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Sadly? Yes? And how anyone? No.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
I don't know how it came to be either, but
a lot of information got passed on to me via
social media over the weekend. Just just listen to what
you said and see if you recognize yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
For you keimys have never forgiven us for the under arm.
They are a bunch of bunch of bushwalking Savignon blanc
gurgling nobody's how many gold medals are the go?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
So, Stephen, what a fool I am given the weekend
that New Zealand had at the Olympic Games, and two
that my partner is a Kiwi And do you think
that went down well when I got home. I'm not
to know.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I don't think so are you at home at the moment?
If she beat you out for the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I've been booted out a long well.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
We got there on the end, We got there in
the ten gold medals is for a small nation of
five million. Although I think it's fair to say you
guys did still maintain you had your best Olympics ever.
Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes? But I followed with great pleasure at the weekend
Lydia co and winning that gold medal in the golf.
How fantastic it come back in her golfing career was that?
So congratulations to Lydia. She was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
What do you put that down to? Because I was thinking,
I was watching it and I was thinking about her.
So she's I mean, obviously she's a great success story
generally in golf, but she's not a consistent winner. In fact,
one of the news stories you hear in this country
reasonably often is the gap between her actually winning. She's
often in contention, doesn't win, and yet go to the
Olympics she wins a medal every single time.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Something about that outstanding. I'm getting myself back in the
good books here. It's something to do with the outstanding
New Zealand uniform. The black of a New Zealand uniform
brings out the passion of the nation. They are the
best rugby players in the world. Obviously, the All Blacks
and I just think she did it for New Zealand
good honor.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, exactly. We enjoyed your contribution from ray Gun. I
thought that of all the things you did at the Olympics,
Raygun really was something quite remarkable.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yes, well, I'm not sure breakdancing will be in the
next Games in Los Angeles. But Raygun is this morning
apparently entertained the entire athletes' village in Paris by putting
on another performance. But when she actually was performing for
her nation, sadly, she scored zero points. Now, apparently a
bloke called Mbility has explained this. He's the judge of breakdancing,

(02:57):
and he said to her, I feel personally sorry for
ray Gun. The breaking and hip hop community stands behind her,
he said. We stayed with her. We've got five criteria.
Her level was not as high as the other competitors.
Her competitors were just better, But it doesn't mean she
did really bad. She did her best. Now, what did

(03:20):
ray Gun actually do in that performance? You can look
it up on the internet or wherever TikTok. She did
the sprinkler hop like a kangaroo and yawned at one
of her opponents. Not exactly the best, and she was
described as looking like a high school pe teacher dressed
up in that awful uniform of ours.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Exactly. Listen, Poling, what have you got for us this morning?
I've got some polling that suggests that the once again
the Coalition is doing okay on the economy because you've
got this unfortunate business between the government and the Reserve Bank.
Whether you know over whether spending is adding to inflation.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, there at odds. The latest News poll out in
Australia today still fifty to fifty, but the primary voter
Labour's gone backwards again in the primary votere the college
has gone up. But most people interestingly now are saying
that it's probably going to be a hung parliament minority government,
which is the worst possible result for Australia. If you've

(04:18):
had Anthony Albanezi but not enough seats to govern in
his own right, he'd have to do deals with Independence.
That would mean doing deals probably with the Teals if
they get back in, and that would just be a shamuzle.
Last time it happened, Julia Gillard took two weeks to
negotiate her way into into office. She had to deal
with three independents, and it was a terrible government. This

(04:38):
would be even worse under Anthony alberneesi the things that
he would have to give up. We've just wrecked the
economy even further. A horrible thing to happen.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
What are your rules on east scootering in Melbourne?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, none at the moment. So we're going to have
a local government council election in the next couple of months.
So they're saying, now, oh, well, we're going to introduce
all these rules. If you get caught riding on the
footpath where you get caught double dinking, or you get
caught doing it without a helmet, then you're going to
be heavily fined. I can tell you right now. No
one will police it. No one at all will police it.

(05:11):
There's so many of these things they littered around the
streets of Melbourne. People just use them willy nilly. And
you see kids riding double up down a major road
without helmets. On how more people haven't been killed, I've
got no idea. And then of course you add to
that and all the people getting egg and bacon rolls
delivered to them at eight o'clock in the morning on

(05:32):
the back of a scooter by some poor foreign students
who's out here trying to earn a living. How those
people don't get killed, I'm not sure. But they say
they're going to get tough. They won't really.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Hey, the Foxtel thing, Murdock's looking to flick Foxtel, depending
of course on what they sell it for, if they
sell it, and depending on who.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
It goes to.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Is that like a major upheaval coming in the Australian
landscape or not?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
You're trying to get me sacked from Sky? Are you
both commenting on that? Just because I had to go
at New Zealand on the project. What you're trying to
do now?

Speaker 1 (06:01):
You've got your multi channel thing going on, you got
your skywork, you got your Channel ten work. It's like
you your sort of multi platform superstar.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
But that is that a big deal?

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Will that, you know, up end it with all the
streaming now?

Speaker 2 (06:13):
I don't think it's not really good. I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
No, No, you go, well we'll catch up Wednesday. Appreciate
it very much. The price out of Australia, Yeah, that
pole I alluded to as regards the economy thirty four percent.
Dunton who handles it better. Thirty four percent said Donte,
and twenty three percent see the Albans when it comes
to the economy.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
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