Australia’s teenage breakdancer Jeff Dunne has backed Rachael Gunn after making a low-key debut on the Olympic stage a day after his under-siege teammate.
Gunn took social media by storm when she and her sport debuted at the Olympics, with the 36-year-old university lecturer nicknamed ‘Raygun’ failing to score a point in her three round-robin battles.
Dunne is only at the start of his journey as a 16-year-old high school student who welcomed post-battle advice from the man who went on to win gold.
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He was also eliminated at the round-robin stage after three straight losses, though he collected two points as he leaned on the crowd for support.
“I was having a lot of fun especially towards the end. I did feel a little frustrated at times, but that’s because I think going against all these high-level athletes.” he said.
“It’s not like just some random person from Australia that’s not that good. These are b-boys that have been in the game longer than I’ve been in the game.
“So a lot of these b-boys are people I look up to and I admire, so to go against them is just a whole new level of respect and experience.”
Dunne paid a brief tribute to Gunn, who has already been backed heavily by Australian chef de mission Anna Meares, after his performance.
“All I know is she represented hard, she has been the leading breaker in Australia for the women and I acknowledge her and respect her 100 per cent,” Dunne said, according to News Corp.
While Gunn did not register a point, Dunne did so in his second and third bouts — including against Phil Wizard, the Canadian who claimed the gold medal later in the day.
Wizard, real name Philip Kim, offered some direction for the 16-year-old Australian.
“He told me ‘it’s just your presence, you need to show your presence through your movements a bit more’,” Dunne said.
“He said that comes with experience and getting used to big world-level stages.
“Being from Australia, it’s so isolated as well as being the youngest competitor to be competing on the Olympic stage, it’s something new to me, and he knew that.
“So for that to be said by someone I really admire, it’s just so good.”
Dunne will next take on the world away from the Olympic spotlight — and he may never again step onto this stage, through no fault of any competitor in Paris.
Breaking debuted at Paris 2024 having already been scrapped from the program for Los Angeles 2028 back in October last year.
It was dropped in favour of baseball, softball, T20 cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash.
Breaking organisers are holding out hope that their sport returns for Brisbane 2032 but, given its niche in Australia, it would appear highly unlikely to be promoted by Australian officials.
Its place as an Olympic sport in Paris faced criticism for several reasons, including cultural appropriation, with Lithuanian silver medallist Dominika Banevic competing in a durag.
But the biggest concern surrounded “the essence of the culture being diluted” by the Olympics as a “mass scale” event, according to Associated Press journalist Noreen Nasir.
“Breaking and hip-hop culture was born in the Bronx in the 1970s from Black and brown communities,” she told 7NEWS in Paris.
“It’s a youth culture that was born really amid struggle and strife, it was a form of empowerment for those youth to be able to express themselves regardless of that strife.
“There’s a lot of history in that culture and for some people there was the concern that history would not be honoured on the Olympic stage.”
After covering the event in Paris, Nasir said the athletes had smaller dreams than working to secure breaking’s future for Brisbane 2032.
“I think regardless of whether this makes it back to the Olympics or not, a lot of the breakers have expressed that it’s about bringing resources back to the communities they’re from,” she said.
“To really propel the movement forward, to be able to spread the culture of breaking and to inspire young kids who might want to get into breaking themselves.
“In that sense breaking at the Olympics has been a success and we’ll see where it goes from here.”