How Olympic Breaking Was Broken

So the first, and likely only, Olympic breaking competition has come and gone. Japan’s B-girl Ami and Canada’s Phil Wizard took home the first gold medals in the history of the sport, and they were well-deserved. While it was certainly fun to watch a lineup that included five former world champions battle it out in the big circle, in the end it wasn’t a particularly good showing for the sport, leaving a lackluster first impression on the global stage. Much to my surprise, by the time the last record spun, I had concluded that the Olympics wasn’t really the best place for breaking to be. Let me explain.

First and foremost, the anchors and commentators and officials and whatever other powers that be completely failed to explain how the scoring worked. Millions of people were watching a breakdance battle for the first time, and none of them had any idea who was winning or why. Other Olympic sports, no matter how odd or obscure, do not have this problem. I was able to learn the basics of curling within half an hour of turning on my TV. Even a more subjective competition, like figure skating, does a better job of informing the audience what a winning performance looks like. But other than a brief rundown of some vocabulary, breaking got almost no introduction to the Olympic audience. There were several decisions by the judges that drew choruses of boos from the confused onlookers. And some of them were bad decisions, but I’ll get to that in just a bit. As far as introducing the sport of breaking to a new audience, the Olympics dropped the ball and it was a totally unforced error. 

The battle between Vicious Victor of America and Hiro10 from Japan made the divide between the judges and the audience all too clear. Hiro10 put on a dazzling display of power combos, spending a truly incredible amount of time spinning on his head, and the crowd understandably went nuts—they were watching something that seemed impossible, but he made it look easy. While Victor danced a very clean, competent set like he always does, it was nowhere near as impressive as his opponent’s, and the quietness of the crowd during Victor’s turn confirmed it. And although it was obvious to even the most casual observer that Hiro10 had won decisively, the judges voted overwhelmingly for Victor, which drew down angry shouts from a stadium full of confused and frustrated people. I can’t recall another time the Olympic judges were booed by the entire crowd. Quite frankly, it felt like Victor was just given the bronze so that an American could stand on the podium for breaking’s Olympic debut. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Hiro10 could perform every move Victor did, but Victor definitely couldn’t do everything Hiro10 did. In any other sport, that would decide the winner. The ice skater that can’t land a triple lutz loses to the one that can.

Sadly, the gold medal battle was ultimately underwhelming. France’s Dany Dann and Canada’s Phil Wizard performed two killer rounds. But in the third, Dany Dann landed a move wrong and seemingly hurt himself because he abruptly ended his turn afterward, even making a gesture conceding the battle to his opponent. Of course, that’s nobody’s fault and mistakes happen when you’re breakdancing, but it was a bummer of a way to conclude the sport’s first Olympic showing. Nobody wants to win gold by forfeit, and it doesn’t make for compelling viewing, either. 

Now, we have to talk about the kangaroo in the room. *Sigh*

Dr. Rachel “Raygun” Gunn, a university lecturer and self-proclaimed b-girl from Australia, put on such a pathetically shameful display that it has completely dominated all conversations about Olympic breaking. It was readily apparent, even before she failed to score a single point, that Dr. Gunn was completely, hilariously out of her league. She did a kangaroo hop and even the fucking sprinkler—it was like watching your mom dance after her third glass of wine. Dr. Gunn displayed absolutely no command of even the most basic fundamentals of breaking. She had no power, no footwork, no downrock, and zero finesse. Completely unable to do anything remotely interesting or impressive, or even keep her flailing on the beat. At one point, it looked like her opponent interrupted her turn just to spare her more humiliation. To put it bluntly, Dr. Gunn had no business being on that stage, and what she did was an embarrassment to herself, Australia, the Olympics, and the entire sport of breaking. 

So, how did she manage to do all of that in just three rounds? Is she really that bad a dancer?

The short answer is YES. As of this writing, Gunn’s is the only Olympic battle I have not been able to find a complete recording for. Australian news anchors divulged that they “weren’t allowed” to show the footage. The clips I have seen would have been embarrassing even for a first year breaker. But Gunn claims she’s been breaking for 16 years, which actually makes her look so much worse. I haven’t thrown down in a circle in over 20 years, but I could easily recreate Gunn’s entire set right now without a single second of practice, and you could, too. That’s how simplistic and facile her dance was. She kept insisting in interviews that what she brought to the cypher was “creativity and originality” but she didn’t do anything you haven’t seen a hyperactive six year old do. Sure, other b-girls aren’t biting her moves, but that’s because they are awful, not because they’re “too original.” To be brutally honest, there is no context in which what Dr. Gunn did could be described as good dancing. 

Then Australia’s Olympic Chief tried to come to her defense, sounding downright delusional as she tried to play the misogyny card. She told a story about Dr. Gunn crying in 2008 because breaking was such a male-dominated sport and talked about how much Gunn deserved to be there because of her academic dedication. Interestingly, no mention was made of Dr. Gunn’s skill as a b-girl, because she literally has none. This coach actually tried to make her out to be some kind of hero to women athletes because she so bravely showed up in a place she did not belong and made a fool of herself and her country. To be clear, nobody said Gunn didn’t belong there because she was a woman—there were 13 other b-girls who actually deserved to be there doing some world-class breakdancing. And all of them got overshadowed by this Australian set of clown shoes. 

The worst part is that Gunn didn’t just embarrass herself or her country, but the entire sport of breaking. Sending her out there as Australia’s champion was a slap in the face to b-girls back at home and around the world. And the circumstances of her selection are suspect at best. Gunn spent the last few years attending breakdancing competitions all over Australia, where she consistently placed between 40th-70th. But then, miraculously, she won one! From 70th place to first in just a few years. She must be an incredible breakdancer, or a really good cheater. Anyone who saw her performance in Paris knows it wasn’t the former. And that was it. Just the one. Apparently that was enough to let her walk onto the Olympic stage. Every other b-girl in attendance had multiple national or world titles to their names and had achieved top places in numerous Olympic qualifiers. According to the Chief, all Gunn had to do was “want it so bad.”

In short, what Dr. Gunn did was entirely selfish. At first, I wanted to believe she was just delusional, but I eventually came to realize that none of this was an accident. She did it all on purpose. Gunn’s doctorate is in cultural studies, specifically the social dynamics of breaking, which means she knew exactly what she was doing. Nobody misled her to believe she was a good breakdancer—she’s watched the best b-girls in Australia her entire career, and she knew for a fact that she was not one of them. But that didn’t stop her from taking an Olympic opportunity away from a girl that might have done herself and her country proud. Why would someone who loves b-girls and breaking so much do that?

Academic exploitation, plain and simple. Dr. Gunn researches and writes about breaking professionally, so her farcical failure can be mined for content for the rest of her career. She’ll still get tons of papers, articles, interviews and speaking gigs out of that experience, even though she was an utter laughingstock. Because now if you try to search for “Olympics breaking” (or any variation thereof) the first pictures you see won’t be of Ami and Phil Wizard biting their gold medals—no, you’ll see page after page of this clown, each pose stupider than the one before. Dr. Gunn has become the face of breaking worldwide. Instead of the incredible athletes who put on jaw-dropping performances, the public discourse on breaking is now all about a woman that cannot breakdance. This was breaking’s chance to be taken seriously as a sport on the world stage, and she destroyed that opportunity with her unpracticed convulsing. Presenting Dr. Gunn as a world-class breakdancer undermines all of the hard work thousands of real b-boys and b-girls have been putting in for decades. It’s now very unlikely breaking will be taken seriously anytime in the near future—her performance was so bad it damaged the reputation of the entire sport. It won’t be included at the next games. Every asshole out there that says breakdancing is just dumb people rolling around on the floor now has all the ammunition they need, and that’s thanks to Dr. Gunn. No doubt someday in the future another young PhD hopeful will write a thesis about the many negative impacts the selfish entitlement of Dr. Rachel Gunn had on the culture of breaking. She is easily, and without exaggeration, the worst thing to happen to breakdancing in my lifetime.