This 36-year-old academic has danced her way to the Games

“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” 

That quote from George Bernard Shaw, often thrown disparagingly at teachers, has been convincingly debunked by Australian Olympian Rachael Gunn.

Gunn, who is participating in breaking at the Paris Olympics, will be cheered by her friends, family and students as she dances her way to the world’s grandest sports event.  

The 36-year-old lecturer at Sydney’s Macquarie University with a Ph.D in Cultural Studies is also a professional breaker, known to fans as B-Girl Raygun.

“In 2023, many of my students didn’t believe me when I told them I was training to qualify for the Olympics, and were shocked when they checked Google and saw that I qualified,” Gunn said.

“When I was a guest lecturer at a different university this year, a few students came down at the end and asked for my autograph. That has never happened to me before, so it was definitely a new experience,” she told CNBC in an interview.

Much of her teaching and research is about breaking and hip hop culture, as well as gender stereotypes that surround these dance styles.

Breaking, for the first time, has become an official sport at the Olympics, making it Gunn’s biggest competition so far. 

She represented Australia in 2021, 2022 and 2023 at the World Breaking Championships, and is known as the country’s best female breaker.

Gunn who ranked 64 out of 80 breakers in last year’s competition in September, chose to push “harder than ever” to qualify for Paris.

“In breaking, you just never know what’s going to happen on the day. You always have to be prepared. I knew the stakes were higher for the Olympic qualifiers, and prepared 10 different sets and made sure I included all the elements and moves in the rounds.” 

“I really, really,  wanted it, and so I fought really hard throughout the competition and just put everything out there,” she said.

Gunn’s journey to the Olympic dance floor was quite challenging, especially as she started breaking much later in her life.

But she was confident that being an older breaker gave her an upper hand.

“The younger competitors are great in their strength, fitness, and explosiveness. But the older ones bring a different level of maturity to the dance.”

Gunn said to stand out from the competition in a sport that values originality and imagination, she strives to give the judges a unique take.

“My specialty is style and creativity, not dynamics or power moves like many other dancers,” she said, adding that she has developed her own moves, sequences and her own way of moving.

“I’ve ticked most of these…