The athletes battling for breaking gold at the Olympics will bring an array of tricks to Paris but Australia’s Dr Rachael Gunn may be the only one armed with a PhD in the sport’s culture.
The 36-year-old known as “Raygun”, a portmanteau of her name, completed a thesis in 2017 on the intersection of gender in Sydney’s breaking scene while training to become one of the nation’s top dancers.
The Macquarie University lecturer will soon take time out from academia to compete at the Place de la Concorde, where breaking will make its Olympic debut some 50 years after emerging from the streets of the Bronx.
A university faculty office may seem an unlikely habitat for a breaking champion, and Gunn laughs when confirming she is unaware of any other academics moonlighting in the sport.
“People certainly think it’s cool and interesting, but it’s also really different to the classic academic path,” she told Reuters in an interview.
“So you do get a few different reactions depending on which department or faculty people are from. But by and large, the response has been really positive.”
Gunn did not take up breaking until her mid-20s and stands out among the teenagers qualified to date, who include Lithuanian world champion Dominika Banevic, a 16-year-old who competes as “B-girl Nicka”.
Australia’s male qualifier Jeff “J-Attack” Dunne is also 16.
Yet Gunn is far from an anomaly, with American rival Sunny Choi also set to fly the flag for mid-30s breakers at Paris after giving up a corporate career.
Younger bodies have it easier learning and perfecting “power moves”, the more acrobatic elements of breaking that often demand speed, strength and momentum, Gunn concedes.
However, she is still trying out – and nailing – new elements with the help of her husband and coach Samuel Free, a competitive breaker under the name “Sammy The Free”.
“It’s a different experience. I obviously spend more time warming up, more time in…
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