Raygun, Polarizing Olympic Breakout, Now Ranked the Number One B-Girl. Huh?
Started From the Bottom
The World DanceSport Federation issued a statement explaining how a breakdancer who got zeros across the board in Paris is now on top
The worst breakdancer at the Olympics, Raygun — who scored zeros across the board — is now officially number one in the world. And before you could even finish your spit take, the World DanceSport Federation — which declared Dr. Rachael Gunn the planet’s top B-girl this week — already knew what you were thinking and prepared a statement in its defense.
The federation explained Tuesday that the scoring was based on “each athlete’s top four performances within the past 12 months” and that the Olympics and Olympic qualifiers don’t count. As The New York Times points out, there weren’t that many events that weren’t related to the Olympics.
So all the B-girls who popped, locked, and flipped in preparation for Paris should have been participating in qualifying competitions to maintain their status. “By the end of the Olympic Games, many of the competition results included in the ranking had expired, leading to the current situation where many athletes have only one competition result contributing to their ranking,” the mea culpa said.
So even though Raygun hopped like a kangaroo in Paris and faced “devastating” scorn on social media and a merciless Rachel Dratch impression in the weeks that followed, she did pretty well at an official competition when other breakers were going for the gold. “The recent rankings of B-Girl Raygun and B-Girl Riko have drawn particular attention,” the federation explained. “Both athletes earned 1,000 points in their respective events: B-Girl Raygun placed first at the Oceania Continental Championships, October 2023 … [and] B-Girl Riko placed first at the Breaking for Gold World Series in Hong Kong, December 2023.”
Furthermore, some obscure fine print in WDSF’s Breaking Rules and Regulations Manual (Article 5.1.1 for those of you with a copy handy) gave Raygun an edge over Riko, even though their scores tied.
“The WDSF confirms that rankings will change after the above 12-month points expire and when the next WDSF Breaking for Gold World Series is held in Shanghai in October 2024,” it said. The statement also offers an email address for anyone (in this case, everyone) with questions.
Since Raygun’s points expire next month, she’ll have to hop a little higher to get back on top next time.
