She may have mimicked a kangaroo and performed other laughable moves during breakdancing’s Olympic debut last week, but the Australian B-girl known as Raygun says her performance wasn’t a joke.
“I went out there and I had fun,” Rachael Gunn, a 36-year-old Sydney university professor, said in a video posted Thursday morning on Instagram, six days after she competed in the Paris Games. “I did take it very seriously. I worked my butt off preparing for the Olympics and I gave my all.”
Gunn was swept out of the round robin portion of the women’s breaking competition on Friday, with the judges scoring each of her three bouts 18-0 in favor of her opponents. Her routines have been widely mocked on social media and elsewhere.
Gunn addressed the public response in her video.
“I just wanna start by thanking all the people who have supported me,” Gunn said. “I really appreciate the positivity, and I’m glad I was able to bring some joy into your lives. That’s what I hoped [for]. I didn’t realize that that would also open the door to so much hate which has, frankly, been pretty devastating.”
A petition on change.org demanded a public apology from Gunn and Anna Meares, the head of Australia’s Olympic delegation, as well as an investigation into the selection process that allowed Gunn into the competition.
The petition had received more than 57,000 signatures Thursday morning before it was apparently removed from the site and replaced with a message: “This petition isn’t available. Either the URL is incorrect, it violated our Community Guidelines, or the starter removed it.”
Change.org did not immediately respond to questions from The Times.
Earlier on Thursday morning, the Australian Olympic Committee released a statement calling for the removal of the petition.
“It is disgraceful that these falsehoods concocted by an anonymous person can be published in this way,” AOC chief executive officer Matt Carroll said in the statement. “It amounts to bullying and harassment and is defamatory. We are demanding that it be removed from the site immediately.
“The petition has stirred up public hatred without any factual basis. It’s appalling. No athlete who has represented their country at the Olympic Games should be treated in this way and we are supporting Dr. Gunn and Anna Meares at this time.”
Gunn concluded her video by saying she will remain in Europe “for a few weeks for some pre-planned down time” but will be “happy to answer more questions on my return to Australia.”
She added: “I’d really like to ask the press to please stop harassing my family, my friends, the Australian breaking community and the broader street dance community. Everyone has been through a lot as a result of this, so I ask you to please respect their privacy.”