Australian arm-wrestler Rachael Gunn, or 'b-girl Raygun', holds the top spot in her sport's latest world rankings despite an Olympic performance that led to online ridicule.
On Tuesday, the sport's governing body issued a statement to “provide clarity” on why Raygun is peaking the ratings.
Raygun, a 37-year-old university lecturer from Sydney, failed to score points at the Paris Olympics in routines that included a “kangaroo” dance.
The World Dance Federation said the ranking methodology is based on each athlete's top four performances over the past 12 months — but excludes Olympic events, including the Paris Games and Olympic qualifiers in Shanghai and Budapest.
In addition, no qualification matches were held between December 2023 and the Olympics — to allow athletes to focus on qualifying.
The federation explained that the unusual conditions of this year's competition schedule resulted in many athletes being ranked on a single event basis. In Raygun's case, her first place finish at the Oceania Continental Championship in October 2023 earned her 1,000 points.
Many in the breaking community have criticized the rankings for not giving a clear picture of breaking as a sport and as a culture.
“Speaking of the WDSF, they really have no real value with the breakers or the breaking community,” said Zack Slusser, vice president of Breaking for Gold USA. “And they also couldn't organize events with their measures that would help create an accurate world ranking.”
According to Slusser, breakers only played in events organized by the WDSF – the Lausanne-based governing body for competitive dance sports – to get enough points to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
The Breakers “had no motivation, no desire to continue participating in the WDSF after that,” Slusser said. “Because they are not cultural events. It's not pleasant.”
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