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Australian athletes achieved a file gold medal haul on the Paris Olympics however their success has been overshadowed by the exploits of an unsuccessful breakdancer. 

Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, a college lecturer from Sydney, represented Australia within the breaking competitors in Paris with a routine that included mimicking a hopping kangaroo and imitating a sprinkler however did not earn any votes from the judges.

So nice was the mockery on social media and the backlash in Australia that some questioned her choice for the game, which featured for the primary time on the Olympics.

Megan Davis, a high-profile Australian educational and sports activities administrator, instructed on social media that the street-dancing professor’s poor efficiency was a part of Gunn’s educational examine. A petition questioning her choice, which additionally criticised Australia’s Paris Olympics chief Anna Meares, gathered greater than 50,000 signatures.

The Australian Olympic Committee described the claims as “vexatious, deceptive and bullying”. It stated Gunn was chosen after successful an Oceania occasion in 2023 that was carried out below the Olympic qualification system with 9 unbiased worldwide judges presiding over the competition. Breakers from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea competed.

“The petition has stirred up public hatred with none factual foundation. It’s appalling. No athlete who has represented their nation on the Olympic Video games ought to be handled on this means,” stated Matt Carroll, chief government of the AOC, which flagged the petition for misinformation in regards to the choice course of. It was eliminated on Friday. 

Gunn denied that her routine was a mockery of the game. “I did take it very significantly,” she stated in an Instagram video on Thursday, including that the torrent of on-line abuse had been “fairly devastating”.

The arguments over “Raygun” come as Australia has invested closely in rising sports activities.

Australia received 18 gold medals in Paris, a file quantity that positioned it fourth within the desk behind the US, China and Japan. The nation’s haul of 53 medals was its second-best tally, after its efficiency at its dwelling Video games in 2000.

Australian athletes received medals in Paris for swimming and crusing, sports activities through which the nation has historically carried out effectively. Nevertheless it additionally received gold medals for lately launched sports activities, together with BMX bike driving and skateboarding.

“By way of the economics of sport, this has paid off,” stated Tim Harcourt, chief economist on the Centre for Sport, Enterprise and Society on the College of Know-how Sydney, pointing to the funding in sporting amenities within the nation and the success of its athletes in Paris.

Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, praised Gunn this week for “having a go”, which he stated was within the spirit each of Australian tradition and Olympic sport.

Meares, a former gold medal-winning bicycle owner, described on-line assaults on Gunn as misogynistic and an echo of the discrimination feminine athletes used to face. She advised reporters that it had taken “nice braveness” from Gunn to take part in a sport that had lately been dominated by males.

Christopher Luxon, New Zealand’s prime minister, described Gunn as “superior” throughout a speech on the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday.

“When you consider New Zealand and Australia’s contributions, you had the long-lasting [wildlife conservationist] Steve Irwin, we had the nice Kiwi suffragist Kate Sheppard and now you could have gifted the world Raygun,” he stated throughout a dialog centred on worldwide relations.

As an in a single day sensation, Gunn, a lecturer in cultural research at Macquarie College whose PhD was entitled “Deterritorialising Gender in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene”, would most likely have a profitable profession consequently, Harcourt stated.

“Her lectures will probably be packed. She’s now the best-known professor of cultural research on the earth,” he stated. 

He in contrast her to Steven Bradbury who received Australia’s first gold medal on the Winter Olympics in 2002 when all his opponents within the velocity skating ultimate crashed in entrance of him.

“I grew up with Reaganomics however that is new. That is Raygunomics,” Harcourt stated.