A Panic Attack at the Olympic Village
Just hours before representing Australia at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony, breaker Rachael Gunn had a panic attack in the middle of the Olympic village, as detailed in a new Netflix documentary about her experience at the Games. Gunn, a 38-year-old university lecturer who competes as Raygun, described feeling like an "imposter" as she took in the scale of the event.
"I just could not stop crying... I had a panic attack. 'What am I doing? What have I done? Should I be doing this?'" she recounted in the documentary. Hours later, she was sailing down the River Seine with the Australian team, waving to onlookers.
The Viral Performance and Its Aftermath
Gunn's Olympic journey ended in the round-robin stage, where she lost all three of her battles. She told BBC Sport that despite the losses, she walked away satisfied: "Finishing my last round, the world champion Nicka [Dominika Banevic] gave me props for my moves, the MC celebrated my stuff and the vibe was just generally good."
But one of her performances, featuring unconventional moves like a sprinkler and a kangaroo hop, went viral. The reaction was swift and widespread, spawning memes, a sketch onThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, a reference during an Adele concert, and a defense from Chris Hemsworth on Jimmy Kimmel's show. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also weighed in, praising Gunn for having "a crack."
"It was pretty wild the way I became a topic of conversation in spaces I never thought I would be," Gunn recalled.
Conspiracy Theories and Personal Toll
Beyond the teasing, more serious accusations emerged. Conspiracy theories circulated online claiming that Gunn and her husband and trainer, Samuel Free, had rigged the Australian qualifiers to secure her Olympic spot. The claims were false—Free was not on the selection committee—but they took a significant toll.
"It was really tough when mine and Sammy's credibility, ethics and motivations were being called into question," Gunn said. She described her life as "crumbling," saying she was "just trying to get through the day."
Gunn qualified for the Olympics through the Oceania Breaking Championships in Sydney in 2023 and later received a scholarship at the New South Wales Institute of Sport in February 2024. But she admitted, "I was aware that I was never going to beat my competitors on athleticism. For me, my strength is creativity."
The documentary also shows that Lowe Napalan, head of the Australian Breaking Association, assisted Gunn's training only "a handful" of times. Napalan saw Gunn's routine for the first time just before she performed, and said, "I had to not have a face of shock."
Making Sense of the Chaos
The documentary, titledUntold: Raygun, is part of theUntold series on Netflix, directed by Chapman and Maclain Way, the filmmaking brothers behindWild Wild Country When they first spoke to Gunn, she was still "making sense of the whole thing," as she told the filmmakers. "It was just like right time, right place," Chapman recalled.
Gunn had already agreed to participate in a locally produced documentary for Warner , and the Ways' Stardust Frames Production ultimately teamed up with Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia. Chapman described the film as turning into "a Coen Brothers" movie, a story of an "ordinary person who had been thrust into these extraordinary circumstances."
A Comeback in Taiwan
Eighteen months after Paris, Gunn made her breakdancing comeback in Taiwan. TheUntold documentary captures her return to the stage, a moment that stands in contrast to the turmoil of the previous year. Her Instagram profile conveys a sense of where she stands now: she's "not retired" from breakdancing, available on Cameo, and "embracing the chaos."