{"id":353116,"date":"2023-12-11T00:31:03","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T01:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=353116"},"modified":"2023-12-11T02:01:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T02:01:41","slug":"aussie-uni-lecturer-shaking-up-newest-olympic-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=353116","title":{"rendered":"Aussie uni lecturer shaking up newest Olympic sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Aussie breakdancer\ufeff with a PhD and a job as a university lecturer is shaking up the sport's image as she readies herself for the Olympic Games<\/a> in Paris.<\/p>\n

But Rachael Gunn\ufeff wants it known she's among the thousands of breakers with vastly different stories.<\/p>\n

Supremely talented African-American and Latino youths created the sport of breaking in the Bronx, New York City in the 1970s. Some 50 years later, it's set to make its Olympic Games debut at Paris 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Bosses promise refunds, investigation after BBL farce<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> What spin ace told Aussie rookie after 'whirlwind' debut<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> McDonald's selection hint as Marsh question dodged<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Gunn, a 36-year-old full-time lecturer\ufeff at Sydney's Macquarie University, has met breakers with enormously different stories since taking up the sport about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Australian<\/p>\n

"\ufeffThere are people involved in social work, nurses, lawyers, a lot of people involved in dance, so dance teaching and running studios, and then you've got people in corporate jobs as well, like sales," Gunn told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"There's also different religious backgrounds, as well, and different religious affiliations.<\/p>\n

"It's definitely \ufeffone of the few spaces that I go, around Australia but also around the world, that is just so totally diverse."<\/p>\n

Gunn completed a PhD in breaking culture and is a university lecturer in media, creative arts, literature and language.<\/p>\n

\"Rachael<\/p>\n

"Breaking is such a diverse activity and I think it's because you don't need equipment, you don't need the expensive access fees or membership fees, it is really something that is highly accessible," she said.<\/p>\n

"It's something that I am so passionate about.<\/p>\n

"I'm sure I'm changing the image of what people think the average breaker is, but I also want people to realise that it is so diverse and … I don't want to just be the face."<\/p>\n

Gunn, who's nicknamed "Raygun", and Aussie teen Jeff Dunne, who goes by "J-Attack", qualified for Paris 2024 by winning the Oceania Olympic Games qualifying event in October.<\/p>\n

Gunn travelled from Sydney to Canberra last week \ufeffto attend the Australian Olympic Change-Maker National Summit, at which 24 bright students presented their ideas for sport in Australia to the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC).<\/p>\n

\"Rachael<\/p>\n

Gunn joined Olympians Sami Kennedy-Sim, Mack Horton and Nathan Katz at Parliament House, watching the students' presentations as their mentors.<\/p>\n

Gunn lives a busy life, but almost everything she does revolves around breaking.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI'm constantly balancing all those different aspects of my life, but I think because much of my research is also on breaking I feel like my whole life is thinking about breaking, in all honesty," she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

"So I switch between training and … conditioning and prepping for competitions to interviewing Aussie breakers or analysing interviews, or reading or writing or editing papers. So it's switching from one mode to another but it's all really centred around breaking."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Aussie breakdancer\ufeff with a PhD and a job as a university lecturer is shaking up the sport's image as she readies herself for the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353122,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353116\/revisions\/353122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/353118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}