Speaker 1: From The Australian. I'm Claire Harvey. We've loved bringing you
Speaker 1: insights from our journals around the nation and the world
Speaker 1: this year. Over this holiday break, we're revisiting some of
Speaker 1: our biggest and best episodes from a huge year in
Speaker 1: the news. This episode originally aired on August twelve, when
Speaker 1: her Olympic performance propelled Australian breaker Rachel gunn Aka regum
Speaker 1: to global infamy, and when another Olympic legend leapt to
Speaker 1: her defense, the blame game began. The Front will return
Speaker 1: with all new episodes on Monday, January thirteen. Just hit
Speaker 1: follow or subscribe to hear the latest every morning. Every
Speaker 1: Olympic Games turns up a folk hero. We've had Eddie
Speaker 1: the Eagle, the British ski jumper who in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: eight finished a resounding last but became a crowd sensation.
Speaker 1: Or Eddie the Eel, who in two thousand Sydney Games
Speaker 1: swam the slowest one hundred meters freestyle in Olympic history,
Speaker 1: one of his first dips in a fifty meter pool
Speaker 1: to a roaring standing ovation. Well, I thought I'd seen
Speaker 1: everything in the Olympics.
Speaker 2: Rooming plot.
Speaker 1: Speed skater Stephen Bradbury, who I would defend as a
Speaker 1: master tactician art who Australians embraced for the pure dumb
Speaker 1: luck of winning a race after everybody else fell over.
Speaker 3: Bradbury way off the pace and Lee is now the
Speaker 3: challenger for owner Lee coming up on the outside when Lee.
Speaker 1: Has gone down and Bradbury was in a perfect spot
Speaker 1: states over the line.
Speaker 3: Australia's first ever Winter Olympics called Metal.
Speaker 2: Steven Bradbury is the.
Speaker 1: Champion and now there's Raygun. The thirty six year old
Speaker 1: university lecturer with a PhD in breakdancing culture was Australia's
Speaker 1: sole female team member in what the Olympics are calling
Speaker 1: breaking a new sport in the twenty twenty four Games.
Speaker 1: Very unlikely to reappear in future.
Speaker 2: Wire you Gun representing her country.
Speaker 1: Raygun was terrible, terrible in the way you or I
Speaker 1: would be terrible at breakdancing or pole vaulting or gymnastic
Speaker 1: ribbon dancing or judo or weightlifting. That is, we would
Speaker 1: be normal, normal levels of coordination, normal levels of skill,
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that, but does normal belong at the
Speaker 1: highest levels of athletic excellence to be televised live to
Speaker 1: an audience of billions. I chatted to our sports writer
Speaker 1: Will Swanton and I've got to warn you we got
Speaker 1: a serious case of the giggles during this interview. Will
Speaker 1: Swanton is a sports writer with The Australian. Will you
Speaker 1: were at the Place de la Concord when Reagun made
Speaker 1: her international debut. Tell me what you thought when you
Speaker 1: saw her come onto the stage.
Speaker 2: Oh, just that name Raygun. Now I've never heard of Raygun,
Speaker 2: Like I actually not being the world's most experienced breaking reporter,
Speaker 2: Not exactly no, And I actually said some of mate
Speaker 2: sitting next to me, what time is Gun? Ray On
Speaker 2: not done? Raids? Brad Gun so sitting there, and they
Speaker 2: introduced the sixteen b girls as they're called, know that
Speaker 2: like being called athletes. Apparently they're all be girls in
Speaker 2: breaking and they're all wearing the Americans and the French
Speaker 2: and the Japanese. They're wearing their funky hip hop clothes.
Speaker 2: And then Ygun comes out in the Australian team track suit.
Speaker 2: All right, And that was the first time I thought,
Speaker 2: what's going on here? What's this? The first thing I
Speaker 2: thought was Alyssa Healey and the women's One Day cricket
Speaker 2: team just like it looked like the cricket in the
Speaker 2: fourth the North Sydney all kind of thing. But that's
Speaker 2: all right. And I literally thought she was going to
Speaker 2: get changed before she pame me out to compete. She
Speaker 2: was just in her trackings. So they have one on
Speaker 2: one battles as they call it, which is basically just
Speaker 2: a dance on like Zoolander. And so she came out
Speaker 2: and she was you couldn't say she was breaking like
Speaker 2: the rest of them.
Speaker 1: First came the judge's verdict with zero. Then came the
Speaker 1: social media verdict. I'm trying to see they said somebody
Speaker 1: Mama hopped out the soccer man and came to the
Speaker 1: stage and were what is going on here?
Speaker 3: So mad?
Speaker 2: You're from Australia and you've done lied on your Olympics application,
Speaker 2: and said that you know how to break dance Bunny
Speaker 2: rabbit kanker.
Speaker 1: With one of those two.
Speaker 2: I got moved. So what you're gonna do? I'm a
Speaker 2: worm a feeling that maybe we're not taking the break
Speaker 2: dancing very seriously.
Speaker 1: She did.
Speaker 3: Mama turned up her moves.
Speaker 2: This I say, I love her originality though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, I love ebut of this stuff
Speaker 1: you ain't seen but at all did you think at
Speaker 1: any point is this a spoof or is this a joke?
Speaker 1: Or did you know from the very beginning that actually
Speaker 1: this we were seeing someone who was just not of
Speaker 1: the same athletic standard as the other competitors.
Speaker 2: So she qualified through the Oceania Championships. She's the reigning
Speaker 2: Oceania champion of breaking, so she earned her spot, and
Speaker 2: so there's a tournament and the winner got to go
Speaker 2: to the Olympics. And I'm fascinated. I can't see any
Speaker 2: footage anywhere her in that final, Like I didn't think
Speaker 2: it was a spoof, and I didn't think of I
Speaker 2: just thought that she I mean, it's funny, we're all
Speaker 2: trying to find polite ways of putting it, but she
Speaker 2: just wasn't up to that standard, like remotely up to
Speaker 2: that standard.
Speaker 1: After the event, but before it all went sour on
Speaker 1: social media, Rachel Gunn came out to speak to the journos.
Speaker 2: Just a lovely woman and she was thrilled with being
Speaker 2: part of the Olympics and I just wanted to do
Speaker 2: it my way and it's been such an honor and
Speaker 2: what a treat and Breaking might never be here again.
Speaker 2: Then it's just all been so much fun, and we're
Speaker 2: looking at her thinking, oh my gosh, she's got no
Speaker 2: idea yet of what's happening on social media. I think
Speaker 2: it was a bad It was probably a bad look
Speaker 2: for the Olympics. I don't mean just her performance. I
Speaker 2: just think Breaking didn't suit the Olympics. It didn't fit
Speaker 2: the Olympics.
Speaker 3: I love Rachel and I think that what has occurred
Speaker 3: on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors and taking
Speaker 3: those comments and giving them airtime has been really disappointing.
Speaker 1: Adamir Is, the boss of the Olympic team, complained publicly
Speaker 1: that trolls were being unkind to Raygun.
Speaker 3: She is the best breakdancer female that we have for Australia.
Speaker 3: She has represented the Olympic team the Olympic spirit with
Speaker 3: great enthusiasm and I absolutely love her courage, I love
Speaker 3: her character and I feel very disappointed for her that
Speaker 3: she has come under the attack that she has.
Speaker 1: And I think we could probably agree that some people
Speaker 1: have been unkind to her, but will doesn't be AOC
Speaker 1: and enemies have to take some responsibility for putting Rachel
Speaker 1: Gunn in a position where she was going to be
Speaker 1: humiliated internationally. Don't bear some responsibility for that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Rachel is probably shattered. She was trying to
Speaker 2: give everyone a bit of joquidy. But there's also from
Speaker 2: Rachel's point of view, if you're for any athlete, if
Speaker 2: you're willing to step up into something as big as
Speaker 2: the Olympics, there's the chance that you could be praised
Speaker 2: from the roof pops as some kind of sporting hero,
Speaker 2: which everyone's happen to. But for any professional sport or
Speaker 2: once you step out there, you're up for praise, to
Speaker 2: be mocked, ridiculed, criticized, told how great you are, told
Speaker 2: that you were great. So that's all part and parcel
Speaker 2: of us. There is definitely a part of it where
Speaker 2: if the AOC sends an athlete out there, there has
Speaker 2: to be some recognition of this is Olympic competition. It
Speaker 2: has to be taken seriously. But I think they do
Speaker 2: have to accept that once you be come an Olympic
Speaker 2: athlete and you're in what was a high profile event,
Speaker 2: you're up to be.
Speaker 1: Judged coming up. It was an otherwise stunning games for Australia.
Speaker 1: So how did we do so well in a fortnight.
Speaker 1: It'll be the Paralympics where everyone has an incredible backstory.
Speaker 1: We'll have all the action twenty four to seven at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au for our subscribers. We'll
Speaker 1: be back after this break. Olympic Games usually follow a
Speaker 1: pattern for Australia. We start very strong in the pool
Speaker 1: with gold medals and advance Australia fair coming from all directions.
Speaker 1: We all love Week one, but in the Olympiads of
Speaker 1: recent memory, Weeks two and three are a little less
Speaker 1: spine tingling As we watch ken You win the marathon,
Speaker 1: Sweden win the high jump and China win everything else.
Speaker 1: By the closing ceremony, Australians are cheerfully celebrating a sixteenth
Speaker 1: place in the sports we know when not very good.
Speaker 1: At Paris has been different. The golds have kept coming
Speaker 1: in sports we don't normally prosper in road, cycling, skateboarding, BMX.
Speaker 1: This Olympics Australia has done incredibly well, mind blowingly well.
Speaker 1: So what's changed that's incredible?
Speaker 2: I think one thing that has happened a lot of
Speaker 2: other countries have become stronger and they started taking medals
Speaker 2: off the powerhouses as well, and the swimming it gets
Speaker 2: and it's not all America winning the swimming. Well, my
Speaker 2: impression is across all the sports, a lot more nations
Speaker 2: are winning medals, which are taking off Great Britain and
Speaker 2: taking some of France and taking some off Japan. So
Speaker 2: the top two America and China and miles ahead, and
Speaker 2: then the rest of the top ten is a bit
Speaker 2: of a bunch. Then we're just snuck through. But like
Speaker 2: the men's doubles tennis at Roland Garros, it was a classic,
Speaker 2: but they were John Pears and Matt Ebden, a couple
Speaker 2: of thirty six year olds who live on the same
Speaker 2: street in Perth. Wives are best friends, kids play together,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. Unseated doubles players in a
Speaker 2: field that had Rafa Nadal and Alcahaz playing together and
Speaker 2: all that kind of thing, and that was just the
Speaker 2: unlikelest gold medal. It's lucky for Australia that the swimming
Speaker 2: is the first week because it's everyone on a high
Speaker 2: from night one. So ari m one gold that first
Speaker 2: night and the women's relay one gold that first night,
Speaker 2: So Australia's got two gold medals the first night. It's
Speaker 2: all celebratory back at the village was I think if
Speaker 2: swimming was weak too, if we had the ass the
Speaker 2: first week would be down and it wouldn't have that
Speaker 2: same But I think they all fed each other off
Speaker 2: a bit. The impression I get is that they just
Speaker 2: had a ball. They're in Paris, the whole backdrop is
Speaker 2: one of the great cities in the world. They've done
Speaker 2: incredibly well. I think Anime is even in the way
Speaker 2: I think she was a bit off the mark with
Speaker 2: defending Raygan, because like some form of comment was always
Speaker 2: going to happen once they sent her out there. But
Speaker 2: I think in a way that was also an example
Speaker 2: of Anna just cares deeply about all these athletes, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure the way she is around the village just
Speaker 2: constantly encouraging them. She's done great things as an Olympian,
Speaker 2: so they've got someone there who's actually done it, who's
Speaker 2: spurring them on. The impression I get is that she's
Speaker 2: whipped up this fantastic team and spirit. I think that's
Speaker 2: been part of it. But ever they should be incredibly
Speaker 2: proud of themselves.
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