Kangaroo Blues
Mike Leitao ~ 08/18/2024
Change is inevitable. It is a necessary part of life that keeps things from becoming stagnant and allows growth throughout the world. Everything changes, politics, opinions, sports, music. Another thing that continues to evolve and change is the Olympics (I know everyone is tired of me yapping about them, last time until 2026 I swear). The Olympics are always introducing new games, removing old games, and constant changes around the world lead to changes in the games that stay. One of the new events introduced for the 2024 Olympic Games was breakdancing, and if you didn’t see it, believe me you didn’t miss out on anything. It was so bad that the event is not coming back for the 2028 games. It was a one and done and I wouldn’t be shocked if we never see its revival as it was truly awful. Though no matter how good or bad the event could’ve been, it did not matter in the end, because as soon as the Australian women’s breakdancer got on the floor it was over. One woman single-handedly managed to get a brand new event dead to rights before it even got the chance to become something.
Breakdancing does not need an explanation as to what it is, if you don’t know, firstly, that’s embarrassing and secondly, YouTube is free. There was already backlash when breakdancing got announced as an Olympic event as it was quite different from most of the other events we see take place. Even so, there was some optimism that it would be an interesting and exciting change of pace from the rest of the games. Breakdancing is different and unique and truthfully there were some really solid performances during the Olympics, but if you tried to google 2024 Olympic breakdancing you won’t see any of these, you will just see pages and pages of articles and memes about Australian breakdancer “Raygun”.
Background first; Raygun was the Olympic representative for Australia for the women’s breakdancing event. Raygun is a university lecturer who’s study focuses on breakdancing. She was Australia’s lone representative on the women’s side and scored an impressive zero points through 3 round robin matches. If you haven’t seen her performance you should go watch it, it will give you the confidence to do anything because if she can qualify for the Olympics anything is possible. There were a variety of ways to qualify, the first being the WDSF World Championship where the winner would earn a spot in the Olympics. Raygun competed and got 64th place meaning there were at least 63 better female breakdancers in the world (and that doesn’t include those who are probably better, but didn’t compete in the championship).
There were only 16 spots for each gender, meaning, based on the World Championship, which would be the best qualifier for breakdancing at the time, the field would’ve needed to be quadrupled for her to make it and she still would’ve just barely. Another way to qualify was to win one of the continental qualifying events, which is what Raygun did to earn her spot. But even then if you go back and watch that event she still did not look like the best breakdancer there. Then during the Olympics her entire routine was just so shit, there wasn’t a single thing about it that was impressive except for how bad it was. The fact that one person could be so bad at an event that it swallows all the press and gets the event canned for the future is truthfully amazing.
People have dogged Raygun since the event and it has clearly impacted her since she has said the hate has been devastating and asked it to stop. Although the rumors that she cheated to qualify and only qualified because her husband was on the determining board were a bit much and also proven false, she is not allowed to complain about the hate. Not only has she made a mockery of breakdancing, but she has taken away opportunities and potential fame and money from people who have spent years working on the sport. When you choose to put yourself in a position where the spotlight can and will be on you, a risk is that hate has the potential to come with it.
It’s a simple tradeoff and she has to deal with it. She has undoubtedly become borderline famous because of her atrocious performance and with that comes hate. If it is something she is unable to deal with, she should’ve never attempted to qualify in the first place. She showed no remorse for her performance at the time and did not seem to have any care when she continued to score zero points in all the round robin events. Most athletes spend their whole lives competing and training for the opportunity to compete at the Olympics. If any of them scored zero points in their respective sports, the emotions they would show would be painful. Hell, we are seeing this pain in the controversy for the bronze medal in gymnastics, and how much this matters to the competitors (the hate on these gymnastics are unlike the hate on Raygun, neither of the athletes deserve hate for fighting for the medal they feel they earned. If hate should be directed anywhere it should be at the Olympics for botching the entire situation).
Meanwhile, Raygun smiles and laughs as she continues to become an embarrassment to the Olympics and undoubtedly a black eye on the event as a whole. But now that she is getting hate all of the sudden it means a lot to her and the fact that breakdancing is being removed from the Olympics is hurtful for her when it’s her fault. Seeing the way everything unfolded it is clear what her intention was. She wanted her 15 minutes of fame and she got it, she didn’t care about the Olympics or what would happen to breakdancing, all she cared about was getting herself in the global spotlight. But when the hate flowed in and the consequences of her actions followed, she started to run damage control and play the victim card. She ruined breakdancing, she took away opportunities from people, she made a mockery of the Olympics and anyone who wanted breakdancing to become something more than a form of dance. We are free to choose our paths, but we cannot choose the consequences that come with them, and Raygun is learning that first hand.
