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.

It reminded me of the Dawn French/ Darcey Bussell sketch. I'd love to see the entire clip of Raygun (French) versus Logistix (Bussell). Can only find short clips and memes of Raygun. You always need one Eddie the Eagle at the Olympics to set off the incredible super human nature of the real competitors.

I didn't watch a lot of the Olympics - more catching up with the highlights. The bits I saw of the skateboarding and break dancing were fabulous. Great to see something a bit different. And interesting about the host country being able to nominate one-off sports.

think we are going to have to disagree on this, I dare say break dancing does involve skill but I dont get it (a more robust version of that sentiment is available on request)

I actually know someone (an Aussie) who’s a friend of a friend. What happened following the Olympics and memes etc has utterly broken her. I agree the performance was really ropey, but it wasn’t trolling, she was just trying to do something different to stand out and it massively backfired. I feel nothing but pity for her.

This for sure. I feel so sorry for all the truly talented breakdancers in Australia who could have had the opportunity to genuinely represent Australia and for whom being a contestant, and potential medal winner, could have been life- changing.
Seems on the evidence to be selfish, egotistical and manipulative behaviour from both her and her husband

There is something great about the hilarious entrants. I remember a skater who basically had to hold onto the rails round the rink in the winter Olympics years ago. Then there was Eddie the Eagle. Then there was the swimmer from I think Equatorial Guinea who was the slowest swimmer but won his heat as all the other swimmers did a false start. Loved that one.

Nice that the breakdancing community are supportive. I read this, “Breaking is all about originality and bringing something new to the table and representing your country or region,” head judge Martin Gilian — known as MGbility — said at a press conference. “This is exactly what Raygun was doing. She got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”

When I first saw clips I laughed, like properly laughed. Then as I saw more it became less funny & increasingly disrespectful.

Had it been a comedy sketch it would have been absolutely brilliant & everyone would have been in on the joke. As it was, she made her opponent look stupid. Imagine someone turning up at the gymnastics & flopping around for the floor routine whilst pretending to be elite. Or lining up for the pool against the greatest swimmers in the world only to dive-bomb in & do an OTT doggy paddle whilst the other athletes are swimming their heart & souls out.

Breakdancing is hard. It's INCREDIBLY hard & requires extreme core strength & balance. No reason for it not to be taken seriously. She just looks like she's trolling years and years of others hard work & doing it as a middle-class white woman?! It's so tone deaf it beggars belief.

Whatever point she was trying to make was lost when she involved other dancers without their consent on a global platform. A lot of ppl would never have seen breakdancing before & she just made a joke of it.

She’s not delusional. Her PHd is on culture and specifically had segments on breakdancing. She knew she wasn’t good. She was making a point.

She’s also highlighted how easily circumventable some of the qualification pathways are…

I don’t agree with how she made her point, but she absolutely knew what she was doing. There’s no Liz Truss about her at all.

She knew she wasn’t good. She was making a point.

What point was she making?

Bottom line is there was a much more talented woman who didn't get to go to the Olympics. I feel a lot more sorry for her.

Yes , I totally agree with this .
I wonder what the other younger female competitors were thinking ?
Have any of them publicly commented ?
I watched the Breakdancing live and actually thought Raygun was a comedy thing , like a kid on act to get the crowd going etc.
The other girls moves were phenomenal, so acrobatic and the mid air holds etc showed immense ability and core strength.

Your right, you clearly didn't see it... she failed THREE times not once with 0 points each time. This wasn't some girl dancing drunk one night at a night club like 'Hawk Tuah'. This woman competed, publicly, at great expenses, as the best her country has while bragging she has a degree in it. The only way she could have done worse is to be completely disqualified.

She hopped on stage like a kangaroo then flopped on the floor like a fish doing toe touches then just rolled around like a toddler attempting a roly poly for the first time all while fronting to the crowd and other dances as if she was the greatest... it wasn't dancing it was bloody bizarre.

It’s a bit difficult to care much about this, when two men won their Olympic boxing golds …in the women’s events.

I have watched interviews of students who were in classes that she taught who said that she was very weird as well. I still think she has MH issues.

I'm very definitely not sure that an indigenous Australian doing a bad foxtrot would cause people to loudly object they were disrespecting 'white culture', even if they'd only been selected because they were indigenous. It might engender complaints about DEI and anti-white discrimination, and certainly if the selection of this woman deliberately discriminated against black people that should absolutely be called out as racist. I suppose that you could say that demonstrations of racism in an activity created by people who had been victims of racism is worse than racism it at any other time, but I'm not sure it's an argument I'd like to make.

But my comment was primarily questioning the notion why an indigenous Australian would automatically be any better at breakdancing than a white Australian? Obviously, Aboriginal Australians are genetically closer to white Australians than they are to the African Americans who created it so even if there is some gene that makes some people excel at it, it would be irrelevant.

I wonder if the Australian government will
investigate how she qualified ? Could it be classed as corruption , will her and her husband get into trouble ?
Regardless of the sport , how can your husband be your coach and also vote / vouch for your entry ?? Isn’t that like a nepotism type thing ?

People have been putting in shit show performances since day in the Olympics. It's curious how much anger this one has provoked whereas all previous Olympic clowns were seen as just that

Surely it's about elite athletes who have put in years of blood, sweat, training and more training? Not to mention having talent and skills?

Isn't she a feminist academic? With one of her topics being lack of girls in Australian breaking?

I see what she did mostly as a publicity stunt.

In locally small sports it is quite common that there is one family/school/club which runs the local tryouts for higher level competitions and provide majority of the participants in the same time.
Yes, it might introduce some sort of unfairness, but the alternative is that nothing will be organised, as the community just isn't big enough.

The Olympics actively aim for some kind of diversity with regional places and universality places. In tennis, it was a woman from Montenegro and man from Lebanon, who didn't get in originally on their own ranking, but are the best players from countries with very small olympic participation. And, another players got in on continent-specific quotas, Brazilian and Argentinian.

If you don't like it, start a thread about the winner, don't feed this troll.

We are in Germany and went to one of the Olympic ski jumping runs where the Olympics were held. Eddie the eagle knocks her into a cocked hat, you have to have some skill to ski jump even at a mediocre level it’s so bloody high.

This is a conspiracy theory tbf. Raygun and her supporters deny the theory.
And her past supports her assertion that she's earnest as a competitive breakdancer (she's been competing for many years).

Do I think I could do what the other more talented break dancers at the olympics did? No definitely not

do I think I could do what Raygun did? Yes, and with only a couple of months practice if that.

reminded me of honey g who thought she was a genuinely good rapper

I think she's a heavily deluded, privileged, selfish and talentless women.

If you google the Oceania competition, the other women was much better than her. At the very least the other woman should have been picked instead.

This is a case of nepotism/corruption at the highest level. Her husband and her are sort of involved with the organisations that made the selection, he was even a judge on those competitions. Nobody cared about conflict of interest. The other guy selected at the Olympics and her are from the same dance group.

Apparently, the competition to select for the Olympics had very poor promotion and didn't reach all the breaking organisations (many small groups). In an interview she said that she knew she didn't have the upper body strength enough to compete at the same level than the others and that's why she focused on doing something "original". If she knew she wasn't at the Olympics level, she had to cede her place to another woman with the capacity to compete at that level, that's why she's so selfish that she took a unique opportunity from someone with real talent.

Also, the organisation in charge of choosing the participants for breaking is an organisation specialising in ballroom dancing. So they know nothing.

There's another video of her competing against a 9 year old girl, the girl is great and a thousand times better than her. The kid won the battle. Just google Raygun vs Sui.

There's an outrage in Australia about how bad she was, the nepotism, the privilege. She's a PHD lecturer in a "breaking" class, so she can't say she didn't know her level. University lectures are heavily subsidized by the government with tax payers money. How come they are subsidizing a breaking class?! There's even a change.org petition to investigate how she got selected and I signed it too.

Lacrosse would actually be a good Olympic sport - requires a lot of speed, skill and strategy. I wonder if it will stay after 28?

And I read that her and her husband are furious about the zero points and that they said the judges should have awarded points for originality. Yep, delusional.