- Rachael Gunn aka Ray Gun went viral after her breaking performance at the Paris Olympics, earlier this year
- The Australian’s routine became meme fodder online and was also parodied in a sketch on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
- Several misinformation-led conspiracy theories spread online about how Gunn qualified for the Olympics, triggering a backlash against her
Ray Gun is no more. The viral sensation that broke her way into the social consciousness with an insane kangaroo hopping routine at the Paris Olympics has officially announced her retirement from breaking.
The 37-year-old, real name Rachael Gunn, is a college professor with a degree in cultural studies, but became one of the biggest stories of the Summer Olympics after her breaking routine, that saw her eliminated in the first round, drew widespread ridicule (and a fair amount of support). The routine even led to a misinformation campaign being spread online against Ray Gun, with accusations surrounding the legitimacy of her qualification for the Olympics.
Following the backlash against her, Ray Gun announced she was taking some “pre-planned downtime” in Europe in an Instagram post back in August, but has now gone a step further and confirmed that she will in fact be retiring from elite competitions.
In an interview with 2DayFM, Gunn confirmed that, with breaking being dropped for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, she is also stepping away from local competitions.
“I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems a really difficult thing for me to do now, to approach a battle. I still dance and I still break but that’s like, in my living room with my partner.”
Ray Gun explained that the negative responses to her routine were “really upsetting” and that “It’s still impossible to process, the conspiracy theories were totally wild, and it was really upsetting because I felt like I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was, who my partner was, my story.”
Have her light the torch in LA in 2028 for lols, tbh.
