Viral Olympics 2024 breakdancer Rachael "Raygun" Gunn gets Netflix's 'Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly' spotlight

In the heat of Paris, on the outdoor floor at Place de la Concorde, Australia ’s Rachael Gunn showed up in a green-and-gold tracksuit and leaned all the way into character—kangaroo hops, a sprinkler flourish, unconventional footwork—rather than chase power moves. Those choices, and the scoreboard that followed, turned her into one of 2024’s most viral Olympians. That whirlwind is exactly what Untold: Raygun, Breaking Badly sets out to unpack.

The routine that went viral

Competing on August 9, 2024, Gunn landed in a round robin with three heavy hitters and didn’t advance. She lost all three battles by a combined shutout—the number that became the headline as clips ricocheted around the world.

• Logistx — United States
• Syssy — France
• Nicka — Lithuania

Gunn finished 54–0 on the judges’ cards—the only competitor in either division at Paris 2024 to score zero points.

While most rivals wore streetwear, Gunn’s national team kit and off-kilter inventiveness made the performance instantly recognizable. Head Olympic judge Martin Gilian later defended that kind of originality as core to breaking’s spirit, even if the scoring didn’t break her way.

From academia to the Olympics

Gunn’s path to that stage didn’t start in a crew; it started in a classroom. Born in Hornsby, New South Wales, on September 2, 1987, she trained in ballroom, tap, and jazz as a kid, studied at Barker College, earned a contemporary music degree from Macquarie University in 2009, and completed a PhD in cultural studies in 2017 on gender dynamics in Sydney’s breaking scene. She taught at Macquarie for nearly a decade before choosing redundancy in February 2026 .

Breaking arrived in her mid-twenties thanks to fellow B-boy Samuel Free, who later became her coach; they married in 2018. Gunn rose to the top of Australia’s B-girl rankings across multiple years and represented the country at World Championships in Paris, Seoul, and Leuven. Her 2023 Oceania Championship win over Molly Chapman secured her Olympic berth, making her Australia’s first-ever Olympic B-girl.

Backlash and aftermath

After the Games, her routine was reenacted on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, spun into Halloween costumes, and meme’d into ubiquity. The reaction split: some admired the audacity; others mocked her age, looks, and academic résumé. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Team Australia Chef de Mission Anna Meares publicly backed her, praising the guts it took to compete on that stage.

As attention spiked, false claims spread online that Gunn or her husband had influenced judging or qualification. The Australian Olympic Committee and the World DanceSport Federation publicly denied those allegations. A petition accusing her of unethical conduct drew tens of thousands of signatures before being withdrawn at the Committee’s request as defamatory. Gunn later apologized to Australia’s breaking community for the harassment that spilled onto them.

By November 2024, Gunn announced her retirement from competitive breaking, saying the scrutiny made stepping into battles nearly impossible. She still dances at home with Free. Breaking itself won’t be back at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Meanwhile, her Instagram swelled from roughly 4,000 followers to a massive audience overnight; she signed with a talent agency and began speaking publicly about resilience.

The Netflix look-back

The new film slots into Netflix’s long-running Untold sports-doc banner (previous standouts include Malice at the Palace, the Fyre Festival fallout, and Johnny Football). Directed by brothers Chapman Way and Maclain Way of Wild Wild Country, it tracks Gunn’s arc from late-blooming B-girl to viral lightning rod, with on-camera input from her parents and Free. It arrives alongside two other Untold installments centered on Vince Young and Mr. T.

Untold: Raygun, Breaking Badly premieres on Netflix on September 1, 2026.