It’s still not as athletically impressive as the others I saw, but much more than I was led to believe from the clips making fun of her.
There were a few moments where it looked like she actually had breakdancing experience compared to the “highlights” I’ve been seeing. Still, she looked goofy af.
It felt like a modern interpretive dancer was given a printed brochure about breakdancing an hour before the show and told to ‘wing it’.
She’s got strength, balance, timing, and control, but it’s like… she’s Eileen Dancing it?! Like she’d kind of have to do that on purpose if she’s ever even once seen a breakdancing video.
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.”
How this was in the Olympics and karate isnt is hard to understand.
Karate isn’t in the Olympics because they can’t agree on rules and by extension have one rule making body.
This is not representative of the rest of the event. The athleticism the real competitors were doing was incredible. It’s closer to an improvised, artistic version of a gymnastics floor routine than this bullshit.
This is all I have seen of it. Being a cord cutter since the last Olympics, I’m not sure where to watch any of it.
YouTube, for a start.
Knowing olympics, it’ll be yet another sport where it’s all men on men / women on women, separated by weight class.
This person undeservingly getting a spot on stage is not representative of the sport. But surely you wouldn’t be commenting on the validity of a sport after seeing only one person do it because then you would be susceptible to being wildly misinformed
I wouldn’t. Like many other sports, bboying (which I use because it a dumb AF moniker) is totally subjective for scoring, and as someone who has done a LOT of karate, gymnastics, and ballroom dance, it seems like all of those should have been included first.
It’s not totally subjective, because they define a way to measure an athletes performance objectively. It’s also a bit ironic because gymnastics could also be quite subjective too. Ultimately the judges and the athletes are aware of how everything is being scored, and the athletes plan their routines around how highly they can score on this rubric.
Imho someone should have warned her…
I think she is someone who has been lied to. Like a girl who had never been told she cannot sing, and when she finally hits the talentshow, Simon Cowell has to break it to her. He’s a dick, but he’s not wrong.
And now a real, good breakdancer is missing out on this chance. We’re talking about the Olympics for crying out loud. Not some tournament with all sorts of people joining. She does not have the skill to compete with the breakdancing going on, clearly, compared to others in this competition.
If she doesn’t like the hate, then don’t seek this spotlight. It’s great to have a passion, yay you! It’s not okay to force the world to enjoy your passion. It’s that type of entitlement that gets people to support someone who clearly doesn’t have what it takes to join the Olympics.
For real, as I’m writing this I don’t get why people accept this. It’s not fair to people ACTUALLY being good at this.
End of rant. Cannot wait to see people get mad at me for not accepting her on that stage.
She was warned, and acknowledged it in an interview before the Olympics. But, she could go to the Olympics. Honestly, it’s kind of weirdly brave to knowingly go and embarrass yourself in front of a global audience. And it’s mostly harmless.
I mean it’s a mortal wound to breakdancing, Australia as a country, and the Olympics as an institution, all of which must necessarily be taken less seriously now. But other than that. 🤣
It’s weirdly an asshole move more like.
The olympics are not accessible to everyone, that’s the whole point. It’s the best in the world at everything, not cool runnings B-reel. I don’t understand why we have to have a war on prestige: some people are working hard to be good at things and they don’t need to share the stage with the everyman. This was walking into a fancy dinner that you KNOW is exclusive wearing jeans and a beater and spitting on the floor when they call your name. Fuck, have the self-awarenees to say “I am not an Olympic athlete” and leave it at that.
Which is all to say your second paragraph is exactly on point lol.
All joking aside, the Oceania board that made the decision, which she was not part of (there’s not a single Australian on it) said she earned her spot through the competition and based on the judges recommendation.
The fact is, Australia doesn’t have a big breaking scene, which is a statement from people in the community themselves. They had to bring people out of retirement just to have enough numbers. So, I guess if your country calls on you and says you’re one of the best we have, you either do it or you don’t.
In that sense, it is kind of like cool runnings. A country with an incredibly small pool of talent for a niche (and brand new) Olympic event didn’t have the time to manifest talent for these Olympic games and didn’t have enough already existent talent that met the qualifications imposed by the IOC and Oceania board. Honestly, it kind of is what it is.
It happens in other Olympic events too, it just doesn’t usually get this much publicity (and isn’t usually quite this silly; I just watched the kangaroo thing 🤣).
It’s probably the only time Breaking will be at the Olympics (already pulled from LA), and instead of the story being about the downright incredible athleticism and art being shown by the other competitors, people are remembering this.
We’re talking about the Olympics for crying out loud. Not some tournament with all sorts of people joining
Ironic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_sports#Olympics
Through most of the 20th century the Olympics allowed only amateur athletes to participate and this amateur code was strictly enforced - Jim Thorpe was stripped of track and field medals for having taken expense money for playing baseball in 1912.
