Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, the Australian breakdancer who captured all of our hearts during the 2024 Paris Olympics for her breakdancing skills which are questionable at best, is officially the #1 ranked breakdancer in the world. The World DanceSport Federation, or WDSF, put Raygun at the top of its rankings, and it’s been a controversial move, to say the least.
If you somehow don’t remember her performances, as if any of us could forget, Raygun gave a series of befuddling dance routines that collectively made us all question whether we had misunderstood what breakdancing was this whole time or if she was just very bad at it. Her performances featured a lot of odd flopping on the ground and bizarre poses that, at times, made her look like a fish flopping out of the water and other times like a cartoon kangaroo silently tiptoeing around a sleeping dog.
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Raygun finished near the bottom of the rankings during her Olympic run and scored zero points in Paris. Yet, the WDSF has her sitting atop the rankings based on her top four performances over the past 12 months, Olympics excluded. Her ranking is mostly attributed to her victory in the 2023 WDSF Oceania Continental Championships, which earned her 1,000 points. If you’re wondering why the Olympics didn’t count, it’s because the Olympic qualifying events in Shanghai and Budapest, as well as the Paris Games, didn’t meet the WDSF’s athlete quotas.
That all means that Raygun’s #1 ranking is a little bit of a technicality. In a statement released by the WDSF, the organization clarified that their rankings are updated based on performances within a 52-week period, and points from the Olympics and its qualifiers were not included in the latest list. This decision led to a situation where many athletes have only one recent competition result affecting their ranking. Raygun’s 1,000 point victory rocketed her into her top spot. We can only assume she celebrated with a little celebratory dance that someone confused for an epileptic fit.
Her points are set to expire next month, which is also when the next WDSF Breaking World Series will be held in Shanghai.
