to think Rachel 'Raygun' gun has broken the phrase 'Oh for the confidence of a mediocre man'?

[Raygunstun]

( Ok, yes I know I am late to the party on this one).

I'm talking about the Australian women's entry into the breakdancing at the Olympics.

She went out there with absolute confidence, and complete lack of self awareness, and did really terrible breakdancing. It wasn't even really breakdancing. It was like some sort of interpretative dance. Her moves were clunky and slow. they did not flow, the connections between moves were awkward. She was like a competitor in a very, very local competition. And she appeared to have no awareness of this. I know there is a lot of creativity and expression in breaking, but it surely has to be combined with technical skill.

She also appears to have no awareness that the Olympics is about showcasing outstanding physical prowess and technical expertise. Both of which she clearly lacked.

In a way, I admire her confidence, but I don't admire her lack of awareness. I also do not believe she was the best female breaker in Australia.

Part of me feels a bit sorry for her as the break dancing world is clearly her world, but I can't help feeling she got so lost in the theory of the ' expressive' side of breaking she kinda lost sight of the technical skill side. A bit like Rachel Dolezol got so lost in the theory of race being a social construct that she lost sight of the fact you actually need to be black to be black.

I just can’t understand how she qualified for the Olympics.

Didn't she and her husband/partner run the committee that was allowed to recruit for the olympics? It could be a rumour, who knows?

But by heck love. That's worthy of a Catherine Tate sketch. 'I can do that'...

I'm dying to know if she was actually being serious. Surely she was just taking the piss??? On the other hand, if she was taking the piss then what a shame for others who could have competed in her place.

Yes that is what I have heard. And her husband was her coach. And he is a terrible dancer too. Also rumours that only about 15 people tried out for the Olympic entry competition and that she connived to keep out genuinely good women breakers from marginalised communities. All rumours. But there is no way she was the best female breaker in Australia. So something happened.

I didn't see the performance in question, but this is one woman. One woman who danced badly once.

Whereas the self-confidence of the mediocre man is endlessly apparent in vast numbers of instances, untrammelled by context, geography, culture, social class etc.

She won the qualifying competition. There are something only like 15 competitors who wanted to go. Breaking has a terrible scoring system you get points for votes. It's not like figure skating where you get points for personal performance. She probably won't get a zero if it's scored like figure skating.

You can find videos of her in the Oceana qualifiers. She's not good there either. But neither were the others.

She clearly wasn't the best female breaker in Australia. They simply could have gone where some dancers hang out, found the first woman or girl, entered her and got her to train.

I don't think she was if you hear her speak. She recognised she does not have the power or dynamic moves of her competitors but seems to have genuinely thought her individual 'expression' made up for that. And it doesn't.

I actually had more sympathy for her when I had only seen snippets of her moves as I thought they were quirky and fun and people were being a bit mean taking them out of context of her whole routine. But when I actually finally saw a whole routine of hers I realised, no, she is just really, really bad and quite delusional. Her confidence is a mountain height about her ability.

This is the qualifying championship apparently

It was particularly excruciating because she is a middle class white woman (an academic!) performing a dance that was developed on the streets of the Bronx by working class black men. Now I'm not advocating gatekeeping, everyone should be welcome to participate, but in her case it's pure race and class privilege that got her to the Olympics and I just do not understand her lack of awareness of how it looks. Liz Truss levels of self delusion here.

Yes I've seen those and they were all terrible, its true. But I think that must say something about the reach of the competition, not the total quality in Australia.

And anyway, I just can't imagine wanting to go and compete at the Olympics if you realised how far behind the rest of the competition in competence. Especially in something like breaking which is so exposing of your performance.

She has won regional championships and won the qualifying event. Her outfit didn’t help her and her performance was poor, but the whole event was pretty shit and it shouldn’t have been anywhere close to the Olympics. If she was younger, good looking and skinny, or a man, nobody would have given a shit.

Wow, that's damning, the girl in green is actually breakdancing!

Yeah I just watched that. Are the judges blind?

@Raygunstun I don't have her confidence and I wouldn't have gone to the qualifiers either.

I mean, she's not exactly old, ugly and fat?

And anyway, I just can't imagine wanting to go and compete at the Olympics if you realised how far behind the rest of the competition in competence. Especially in something like breaking which is so exposing of your performance.

I agree. If that had been me and I was delusional enough to think that I was the best breaker in Australia and deserved the spot on the team, I would have been horrified to turn up and see the quality of the other competitors. I would have instantly developed food poisoning, or a sprained ankle, or a bad back or something which would have let me bow out gracefully without total humiliation.

The fact that this woman didn't, and ploughed on with her writhing on the ground performance just says that she does not have one ounce of self-awareness.

If she was younger, good looking and skinny, or a man, nobody would have given a shit
This is absolutely not true. A younger, attractive, thinner of male person absolutely would have had the shit ripped out of them for a performance like that. And she is actually an attractive woman.

The performances from the other competitors were brilliant.

This is a really good article about how the whole thing went down. The tryouts were organised on a super-tight timeframe; they were expensive to participate; and required competitors to be both Australian citizens and have passports. As a result, barely anyone tried out and the competition stage was weighed against younger, more disadvantaged dancers. The article also talks about how damaging her performance and representation of the sport has been for other dancers, particularly women; and of course it's now not going to be at the next Olympics in LA. She's a fucking idiot if she didn't realise a) how poor her performance was against the people in Australia who were genuinely good, and b) the wider effect that this would have.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/14/raygun-breaking-paris-olympics-australian-dance-industry

Those bobsleighers and the skijumper in 1988 were a bit crap too

However they all met the Olympic selection criteria in their respective countries

I think she has total self awareness. This is trolling on an epic level.

This exactly. I can't believe she's the only one who's a bit rubbish. It's just it's easier to mock dancing compared to running or swimming a bit slower. She met the selection criteria of Australia.

I still can’t figure out if she’s just been trolling the whole time and continues to do so or if she’s genuinely so deluded that she thought she ought to have competed and thinks she is a good dancer

They aren't creative sports so you aren't comparing like with like.

I personally don't think it is. I think she is genuine.