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Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn speaks out after Paris Olympic performance: “I gave my all”
Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn, also known as B-Girl Raygun, is speaking out after she received criticism and ridicule for her viral performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In an Instagram post Thursday, she broke her silence.
“I really appreciate the positivity, and I’m glad I was able to some joy in your lives,” she said. “That’s what I hoped. I didn’t realize that would open the door to so much hate, which is frankly, been pretty devastating.”
“I went out there and I had fun,” the 36-year-old breaker said. “I did take it very seriously. I worked my butt off preparing for the Olympics, and I gave my all.”
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Gunn, a professor from Sydney who holds a PhD in cultural studies, lost all of her three round-robin battles with a score of 54-0, drawing backlash for the lack of points and mockery over some of her moves in her routine, including a “kangaroo dance.” It was even made fun of on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” She responded to some of her critics.
“Bit of a fun fact for you,” she said. “There are actually no points in breaking. If you want to see how the judges thought I compared to my opponents, you can actually see the comparison percentages across the five criteria on Olympics com. All the results are there.”
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She also drew questions over how she was selected to represent Australia.
The Australian Olympics Committee came out in defense of Gunn on Thursday, condemning a anonymous petition on Change.org that demanded an apology from her and Australia’s chef de mission, Anna Meares, for their “unethical conduct” in choosing Gunn. The AOC said Gunn was selected to the Australian Olympic Team through a “transparent and independent qualification event and nomination process.”
“It is disgraceful that these falsehoods concocted by an anonymous person can be published in this way. It amounts to bullying and harassment and is defamatory,” AOC CEO Matt Carroll said in a statement.
As of Thursday afternoon, the petition was no longer live on the site.
The committee pointed out that Gunn held no position within AUSBreaking or DanceSport Australia — two entities that oversee competitive breaking in the country — in any capacity.
Accusations were also aimed at Gunn’s husband and fellow breaker, Samuel Free. The AOC said Free doesn’t and was not a judge at the qualifying event.
Breaking made its Olympic debut in Paris and won many fans. However, the sport did not make it onto the roster of sports for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place on Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business.
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services reported on social media a “hazardous materials incident” at 1901 Payne St., in Louisville. The address belongs to a facility operated by Givaudan Sense Colour, a manufacturer of food colorings for soft drinks and other products, according to officials and online records.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said emergency teams responded to the blast around 3 p.m. News outlets reported that neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the business. Overhead news video footage showed an industrial building with a large hole in its roof.
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“The cause at this point of the explosion is unknown,” Greenberg said in a news conference. No one died in the explosion, he added.
Greenberg said officials spoke to employees inside the plant. “They have initially conveyed that everything was normal activity when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The Louisville Fire Department said in a post on the social platform X that multiple agencies were responding to a “large-scale incident.”
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services first urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted in the afternoon. An evacuation order for the two surrounding blocks around the site of the explosion was still in place Tuesday afternoon.
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A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly $9 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.
Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewelry made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
By chance that was Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds.”
“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett. “…We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”
Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewelry collection in New York.
