AAP FACTCHECK – Breaker Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn secured her place on the Australian Olympic team because her husband was the national selector and a judge at the qualifying event.
This is false. Her husband was not a judge and the qualifying event was open to all.
Ms Gunn went viral soon after her performance at the Paris Olympics. She lost all of her three preliminary rounds of the breaking competition (also known as breakdancing).
However, some are now suggesting she was part of an underhand selection process in a bid to get a taxpayer-funded trip to the French capital.
“If you don’t know who her husband is, look him up,” a post on Facebook reads.
“His name is Samuel Free. He was the judge in the qualifying contests she ‘won’.
“Also the coach of the national team and the team selector.”
A similar claim on X, formerly Twitter, has been viewed more than one million times.
Mr Free is also a breaker and is his wife’s coach.
However, he was not a judge at the Oceania Olympic qualifiers held in Sydney last October. In fact, there were no Australians on the nine-person panel.
AusBreaking, the sport’s governing body in Australia, said the selection event was “open to all interested participants in the Oceanic region”.
In a statement, it said the event followed the same judging system as the Paris Olympics.
It described the nine international judges as “highly respected in their respective communities and in the international breaking scene”.
Raygun was one of 15 women to compete in the qualifying event.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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EDIT: 19/8/24 @10.25AM – Reference to not registering a point changed in paragraph three as it did not reflect breaking’s Trivium judging system.
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