This 36-year-old academic has danced her way to the Games
Australian Olympic breaking athlete Rachael Gunn poses during a portrait session in the Sydney central business district on April 17, 2024 in Sydney, Australia.
Cameron Spencer | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
That quote from George Bernard Shaw, often thrown disparagingly at teachers, has been convincingly debunked by Australian Olympian Rachael Gunn.
Gunn, who is participating in breaking at the Paris Olympics, will be cheered by her friends, family and students as she dances her way to the world’s grandest sports event.
The 36-year-old lecturer at Sydney’s Macquarie University with a Ph.D in Cultural Studies is also a professional breaker, known to fans as B-Girl Raygun.
“In 2023, many of my students didn’t believe me when I told them I was training to qualify for the Olympics, and were shocked when they checked Google and saw that I qualified,” Gunn said.
“When I was a guest lecturer at a different university this year, a few students came down at the end and asked for my autograph. That has never happened to me before, so it was definitely a new experience,” she told CNBC in an interview.
Much of her teaching and research is about breaking and hip hop culture, as well as gender stereotypes that surround these dance styles.
Rachael Gunn competes in the B-girl final rounds of the 2023 WDSF Oceania Breaking Championships at Sydney Town Hall on October 28, 2023 in Sydney, Australia.
Mark Kolbe | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Breaking, for the first time, has become an official sport at the Olympics, making it Gunn’s biggest competition so far.
She represented Australia in 2021, 2022 and 2023 at the World Breaking Championships, and is known as the country’s best female breaker.
Gunn who ranked 64 out of 80 breakers in last year’s competition in September, chose to push “harder than ever” to qualify for Paris.
“In breaking, you just never know what’s going to happen on the day. You always have to be prepared. I knew the stakes were higher for the Olympic qualifiers, and prepared 10 different sets and made sure I included all the elements and moves in the rounds.”
“I really, really, wanted it, and so I fought really hard throughout the competition and just put everything out there,” she said.
Gunn’s journey to the Olympic dance floor was quite challenging, especially as she started breaking much later in her life.
But she was confident that being an older breaker gave her an upper hand.
“The younger competitors are great in their strength, fitness, and explosiveness. But the older ones bring a different level of maturity to the dance.”
Gunn said to stand out from the competition in a sport that values originality and imagination, she strives to give the judges a unique take.
“My specialty is style and creativity, not dynamics or power moves like many other dancers,” she said, adding that she has developed her own moves, sequences and her own way of moving.
“I’ve ticked most of these boxes because it’s my specialty. I don’t know if it’s going to be valued as much as some of the other criteria, but I hope people are still wowed by what I bring since it’s something different.”
From ballet to tap, Gunn was introduced to many different forms of dance at a young age, but her introduction to breaking came much later.
Australian Olympic breaking athlete Rachael Gunn is representing Australia as a B-Girl after qualifying for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games.
Cameron Spencer | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
She was 20 when her then boyfriend — now husband and coach — introduced her to breaking, encouraging her to pursue the dance due to her ability to pick up the beat and rhythm of music much faster than many other students he trained.
“I have a good intuitive sense of musicality. I could always identify parts of the music and was quick at picking up steps, seeing the details in steps, and getting my body to do them,” Gunn said.
Being an older dancer also meant that she had to be more careful of being injured.
“My coach has criticized me for being a little too cautious in breaking, but it has paid off. I’ve never been seriously injured in breaking — only twinges that were very easily fixed by physiotherapy,” she said.
“When I first started, I didn’t have the upper body strength, or the strength at all, required to break and that’s something I’m still building over the last 13 years.”
Although Gunn is now representing her country at the world’s biggest sporting event, breaking as a sport or dance form was not accorded the much respect.
“Particularly in Australia, breakdancing was considered a bit of a joke. Being an Olympic sport now offers an important level of legitimacy for breakers. It’s something the broader public obviously needed to take what we do seriously,” Gunn said.
Her own family initially had their own reservations too.
“They were happy that I was dancing again since so much time and money was spent when I was younger, but they would have preferred for me to take on a more feminine dance style,” she said.
They would have preferred something that did not involve training on the streets at night, Gunn recalled, emphasizing that her parents are much more supportive and interested in her craft now.
As she takes on the Olympic stage this week, her mind is also on the next generation of dancers she hopes to motivate.
“We’re inspiring a whole new generation of people to get into breaking. This is so exciting for us and we just want to share this culture, this dance, and this sport.”
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.
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