On the day she returned home to Australia with her Olympic bag in tow, Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has emerged as the new world No.1 breaker in an unexpected post-script to her last-place finish in Paris.
The 37-year-old’s life has changed dramatically since her performance divided the world with the academic spotted dining out with popstar Boy George and rubbing shoulders with Sir Richard Branson.
But as she landed back in Sydney with her husband Samuel, ready to return to a level of normality, the World DanceSport Federation catapulted Raygun into top spot.
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Raygun appears as No.1 in the official WDSF world rankings for professional breakers for September.
Olympic gold medallist Ami ‘Ami’ Yuasa was missing, as were Dominika ‘Nicka’ Banevic and Liu ‘671’ Qingyi after they won silver and bronze respectively.
Several other Olympic competitors were ranked below Raygun, who finished 16th in Paris ahead of only a disqualified competitor.
Raygun infamously failed to score a single point in her three battles at the Olympics against Nicka, Sya ‘Syssy’ Dembele and Logan ‘Logistx’ Edra.
Syssy also features in the WDSF rankings, sitting 12th, as one of a handful of Olympic competitors in the list.
Ukraine’s Anna ‘Stefani’ Ponomarenko sits third in the rankings despite finishing ninth at the Olympics, with compatriot Kateryna ‘Kate’ Pavlenko ranked 17th after finishing sixth in Paris.
On the men’s side, Australian teenager Jeff ‘J Attack’ Dunne is ranked second by WDSF despite finishing 15th at the Olympics.
The Olympic breaking event did not offer points for the world rankings, which are calculated from eligible events.
Raygun and Dunne both claimed 1000 points for winning the WDSF Oceania Championship that secured their Olympic qualification.
Seven more Australians — four women and three men — are ranked in the top 10 of their respective genders.
The update followed an extraordinary aftermath to Raygun’s performance in breaking’s Olympic debut, with the WDSF and Australia’s governing body AusBreaking forced to defend the qualifying process.
WDSF offered support to Raygun behind the scenes while head judge Martin ‘MGbility’ Gilian defender her publicly.
“I feel personally very sorry for her and I just want to say that Breakers and the Hip Hop community definitely stand behind her, because she was just trying to bring something new, something original, something that represents her country. So we stand with her and she has our support,” he said in Paris.
Raygun’s No.1 ranking is unlikely to alter her plans for the future.
“I don’t think I’ll be competing for a while. Not really wanting to be in the spotlight, breaking, competing,” she told The Project last week in her first interview since the Olympics.
“It’s been nice. It’s been a bit of a process to try and start dancing again. Like, that’s actually been tough. You know, it was my medicine, and then it turned into my source of stress.
“So, I’m really happy that it gets to go back to being my medicine. I can kind of finally feel free again. I’m looking forward to breaking, but, no, I don’t think I’ll compete for a while.”
Raygun has been tipped to cash in on the instant fame and has even hired a new specialist talent agent.
“I’ll survive. I’m alright. The positives are just amazing,” she said.
“I would rather much focus on the positives out of this and the positive responses and the joy that I’ve brought people.”
Raygun said the call from Branson and dinner with Boy George were an “upside” to the Olympics and the barrage of criticism she faced.
“(Branson) thought that it was ‘plucky’ and ‘courageous’ and ‘fun’ and he would love to do something with me and have me on some cruises with Boy George,” she said.
“Like, what is life? I don’t know.”
Raygun was advised to stay off social media but was aware of some of the outrage directed at her.
“I didn’t understand the scale of it,” she said.
“I did preview some comments and I was like, ‘Oh, no’, and this kind of sick feeling started coming out. I was like, ‘Oh, goodness! What has happened?’”
As for the performance itself, Raygun said she hasn’t watched it back and knew she was going to be up against it with her unique style.
“I knew my chances were slim,” she said.
“As soon as I qualified, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what have I done?’ Because I knew that I was going get beaten and I knew that people were not going to understand my style and what I was going to do.
“I wanted to bring out some Australian moves and themes. You know, I love our Olympic mascot, B-K, the boxing kangaroo, and I wanted to show that. And that’s the wonderful thing about breaking — you can take inspiration from any source.
“I had to go with what I was good at, I had to go with my strengths.”