Australia’s “Raygun” is sorry for the backlash her widely ridiculed Paris Olympics performance delivered to the broader breakdancing community.
Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, whose routine featured a move that mimicked a kangaroo hopping, made the comments in an interview with Australia’s Channel 10 broadcast on Wednesday.
In a snippet of the exchange, Gunn was asked if she was the best woman breakdancer in Australia.
“I think my record speaks to that,” the 37-year-old Sydney university lecturer said.
Gunn lost all three of her match-ups against rival dancers and her performance was parodied worldwide, including by late-night U.S. television host Jimmy Fallon, as Breitbart News reported.
Commentators have questioned how she qualified for the Games, with some of her more fierce critics back home calling her a national embarrassment.
An online petition — which has since been removed — even demanded she issue a public apology.
An excerpt of the prerecorded interview published on news.com.au showed Gunn making an apology to the breakdancing community, after the criticism she had damaged the art form’s reputation. Gunn said it was “really sad” to hear the negative reaction to her performance.
“And I am very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced, but I can’t control how people react.”
She added it was “wild” when media chased her in Paris following her display.
“But that really did put me in a state of panic,” she said.
The interview follows a statement released via social media where Gunn described the response to her performance as “devastating.”
New Zealand comedian Jemaine Clement for one went viral with his observations challenging her achievements with a simple observation from across the Tasman:
Gunn has a bachelor’s degree in contemporary music, graduating in 2009, and a PhD in cultural studies, graduating in 2017.
Her PhD thesis, titled “Deterritorializing gender in Sydney’s breakdancing scene : a B-girl’s experience of B-boying”, focused on “the intersection of gender and Sydney’s breaking culture.”
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