It’s sad how much hate she’s getting for this :(
I don’t. A lot of people make a huge mental, physical and economical effort to be there and she just thinks it’s playtime? She didn’t make fool of only herself but of all the professional that fought for break to be in the olympics. She an idiot
She would have known what the impact would’ve been, she literally studied the sport. She must have seen many female Australian breakers who were leagues above her in terms of skill. Yet she thought she was worthy to represent her country, hate is a strong word, but she and the org that put her there should be heavily criticised.
I think what the snooty professional athletes and organisers need to remember is that the general public don’t really care who is the fastest woman to run 250m through mud while wearing a rucksack. You can dedicate your whole life that and for the majority of us it doesn’t matter a jot.
But somebody falls on their face or nearly drowns in the pool, and people will see that because it’s more newsworthy than “man jumps 1cm further than other man”.
Eddie the Eagle. The Jamaican Bobsled team. Eric the Eel. These are the names that stick in the memory. We’ll only remember winners if they win a ton of medals, like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps or Simone Biles.
Who even won the women’s Breaking gold medal? I’d have to look it up if I wanted to know. But we know who Raygun is for better or worse. So who’s the real winner here?
A Japanese woman, Ami maybe, won the gold. I really liked the Lithuanian kid who came in second, she was fun to watch. And I liked the girl from the Netherlands who came in 4th. Bronze went to China’s 671, but her dancing struck me as a power performance more than an art or a form of play.
I didn’t see Raygun till now because I only watched finals. Just didn’t have the time to watch it all. Stupid music licencing rules causing things to disappear.
I mean, I get what you’re going at, but she does hold a PhD in cultural studies, and she did put in a lot of effort to get in. It’s very possible, too, that, in an arena so different than what she’s used to, she choked. A lot of the hate goes above and beyond with death threats and claims she should kill herself, and nobody deserves that.
For how goofy it was, and the memes that have come from it, she’s earned my respect and thanks for bringing a little, albeit unintentional, joy to my life.
look i get it, but i coul get a PHD in other sport, lets say soccer, and lnow everything about it but also know I am not good enough to play. Academics and Olympics are different. Can you imagine being a serious and talented Australian break dancer and having to watch that?! Death treats are ridiculous and as a normal person of couse I don’t think that’s right. But I think she did know she wasn’t good enough but wanted to go for the novelty regardless of other athletes that were better.
She knew what she was doing and did it anyway and that’s a shitty move from a shitty person
sorry for the typos im in a moving train in my phone lol
Nah, some of the background on this I saw had her husband being on the selection committee and forcing the committee to choose her.
(Rumors that Raygun’s husband was on the Olympic breaking selection committee have ultimately been dispelled by the Australian Breaking Committee, and historically, Raygun ranked first or second on Australia’s list of nationally-ranked B-girls from 2020 to 2023. The official Olympics site also has a detailed description of the rigorous process of qualifying to compete in the sport at the Olympics.)
From the link in @Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world ’s comment on this post
Ugh, that sucks.
I saw an interview with her yesterday where she said she gave it her best after a lot of work and was pretty upset about all the hate.
I guess I need to do some more research!
E: seems like she won some awards and was pretty good in her neck of the woods
Odd that they interviewed a breakdancer/breakdancing-teacher and then apparently just some random African American who happened to be within arms reach? That’s the only qualifications they give him. “Malik Dixon is an African American who has been living in Australia for more than a decade and is a Sydney University graduate.”
