I'm uncovering the real reason Raygun scored zero points in the breaking competition at the Olympics...she was counting on her originality but, in fact, she was unoriginal. I provide here the photographic evidence and can provide a date-stamped image for anyone who doubts the veracity of this claim – Raygun is a biter (copier). I do acknowledge Sarah did not raise her hands or legs as high as Raygun, but it is clear Raygun's kangaroo hop is simply a variant of Sarah's original.

I have to admit to not watching the Olympics. For a start, I don't have Sky Sport. For a second, or perhaps it should be a first, I have never owned a television. This has left me without a habit of watching screens recreationally. Not to mention, I largely work on a screen so I'd prefer my recreation to not involve them.

Having not watched the Olympics, how did I find out about Raygun? I certainly knew about her when my songwriting teacher said what does the reference 'Australia breaking' mean to you? Was there something on RadioNZ? Or an advertisement flickering in the corner of my browser? I don't know, but I do know the news source worked in that I was prodded to investigate Raygun (aka Rachel Gunn), what she had done and why this was hot news, at least until the Reserve Bank dropped the OCR rate 0.25%, giving people a hope that the inflation-interest rate-unemployment cycle is headed in the right direction and thus erasing previous headlines.

I discovered the Raygun furore was about an Australian breaker (only old people call it 'break-dancing'), or b-girl, who scored very poorly at the Olympics. Raygun scored zero in every throwdown of her round robin battles. However, I'd like to note that zero in breaking is not like zero in gymnastics, which would be a truly terrible score. In Olympic breaking, zero means none of the judges thought you were better than the competitor you faced off against (while also noting Raygun was the only Olympic breaker, male or female, to score an outright zero).

In Olympic breaking, two competitors face off against each other in front of 9 judges. The judges award points for technique, vocabulary, music, execution and originality – they have 20 points per category and they split those points based on the relative merits of the two breakers using a digital sliding scale. Then, they use those detailed scores to identify which breaker of the two was the better and vote for that breaker – in each throwdown, there's one point awarded by each judge to the competitor they considered best overall. There are two throwdowns between two competitors, so the maximum points in a face off is 18 points.

 While no judge thought Raygun performed better than the competitors she was up against, in the background she  did score some points:

• Raygun Australia vs Logistx USA: 1 judge scored Raygun slightly higher in originality Round 1, 1 judge scored Raygun slightly higher in originality and 1 in vocab Round 2.
• Raygun Australia vs Syssy France: 1 judge scored Raygun slightly higher in originality Round 1
• Raygun Australia vs Nicka Lithunia (who eventually won silver): 2 judges scored Raygun slightly higher in originality Round 1

Raygun was clear about her goal being creativity – she is a footwork cat rather than a power head i.e. she focuses on footwork rather than on showy technical power moves. Raygun is 36, much older than most Olympic breakers who ranged from their teens to their mid twenties. Creativity is a subjective beast...what's creative to one person may not be seen as creative by another. Just like I don't think the kangaroo hop is creative because I saw it a long time ago!

The public have weighed in on social media much more heavily than any Olympic judge of Raygun's breaking, with a wide range of comments about Raygun herself, her ability, whether she should have been an Olympic contender, whether she should have worn an Australia-colour tracksuit looking like a cricketer's outfit (other competitors were wearing more traditional breaking-wear). Comments have expanded into whether Raygun's results were rigged for her to get to the Olympics, whether she intentionally bombed the competition, whether she's the reason breaking won't be at the 2028 Olympics...next they'll be saying Raygun's unfairly influencing the US elections or was responsible for Putin's invasion of the Ukraine. If Taylor Swift can influence voters, who knows what a breaker can do?

All of this proves...nothing very much. Other than how carried away people can get by emotion over matters that are not life or death, nor important to the rotation of the planet around the sun. And how social media provides an outlet for an estimated 4.5 billion people to tell each other loudly what they think about trivia and exchange pictures of what they had for lunch. I had lentil stew. And you?