If you’re anything like us, you’ll have fallen a little bit in love with a certain Olympic breakdancer this past week.
Friday marked the first time breaking ever took place at the Olympics, with a host of break performers from around the world showing their best moves.
Among them was Australian representative Rachael Gunn, known competitively as Raygun, who made headlines when she failed to secure a single point from the Olympic judges.
But while she may not have won over the panel, she certainly won over Olympics viewers, with clips from her routine having since gone viral on social media.
One such viewer, apparently, was Adele, who even took a moment during one of her special shows in Munich on Saturday to shout out Raygun.
“I have to ask you because it’s all that me and my friends have been talking about last night after the show and today. And I’m not saying anything [bad], I think it’s the best thing that’s happened in the Olympics the entire time. Did anyone see the breakdancing lady yesterday from the Olympics?” she asked the crowd.
When her fans responded with cheers, Adele admitted: “Now, I didn’t even know that break dancing was an Olympic sport these days, I think that’s fucking fantastic. I really, really do.”
“I can’t work out if it was a joke, but either way, it has made me very, very happy,” she said of Raygun’s moves. “And me and my friends have been shitting ourselves laughing for nearly 24 hours.
“I just wanted to know if you’ve seen it. If you haven’t seen it, please leave this show and Google it, because it is LOLs, it is so fucking funny.”
Rachael said after her performance became a viral hit (as reported by The Independent): “Creativity is really important to me. I go out there and I show my artistry.
“Sometimes it speaks to the judges, and sometimes it doesn’t. I do my thing, and it represents art. That is what it is about.
“What I wanted to do was come out here and do something new and different and creative – that’s my strength, my creativity.
“I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get in a lifetime to do that on an international stage.”
She concluded: “I was always the underdog and wanted to make my mark in a different way.”
As well as a breakdancing performer, Rachael is also an academic, publishing her PHD thesis on “the intersection of gender and Sydney’s breaking culture” back in 2017.
It was confirmed over the weekend that breakdancing would not be returning as an Olympic sport at the 2028 games in Los Angeles.