You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from The Australian. From the Australian, here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Monday, August twelfth. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be cross examined by Council for Brittany Higgins when he appears as a witness for the senator suing Higgins for defamation former Defense Minister
Linda Reynolds. We'll have live coverage from the WA Supreme Court all week at the Australian dot Com Dot you. A twenty seven year old woman took her life after debt collectors for the National Disability Insurance Scheme pursued her over for a twenty eight thousand dollars debt. That's according to her parents. In an exclusive for The Australian Today, Australian Olympic boss Anna Years has lashed trolls for mocking breakdowncer Rachel raygun Gum after her startling performance in the
last days of the Paris Olympics. So where does the responsibility lie for an Australian athlete's global humiliation. Every Olympic Games turns up a folk hero. We've had Eddie b Eagle, the British ski jumper who in nineteen eighty eight finished a resounding last but became a crowd sensation. Or Eddie the Eel who in two thousand Sydney Games swam the slowest one hundred meters freestyle in Olympic history, one of his first dips in a fifty meter pool to a roaring standing ovation.
Well, I thought I'd seen everything in the Olympics. Uman call.
Speed skater Stephen Bradbury, who I would defend as a master tactician guard who Australians embraced for the pure dumb luck of winning a race after everybody else fell over.
Bradbury way off the pace and Lee is now the challenger for owner Lee coming up on the outside. When Lee has gone down and Bradbury was in a perfect spot. State's over the line. Australia's first ever Winter Olympics called Metal. Steven Bradbury is the.
Champion, And now there's Reagun. The thirty six year old university lecturer with a PhD in breakdancing culture, was Australia's sole female team member in what the Olympics are calling breaking a new sport in the twenty twenty four Games, very unlikely to reappear in future.
Where you goun to represent her country.
Raygun was terrible, terrible in the way you or I would be terrible at breakdancing or pole vaulting or gymnastic, ribbon dancing or judo or weightlifting. That is, we would be normal, normal levels of coordination, normal levels of skill. Nothing wrong with that. But does normal belong at the highest levels of athletic excellence to be televised live to an audience of billions. I chattered to our sportswriter, Will Swanton, and I've got to warn you we got a serious
case of the giggles during this interview. Will Swanton is a sports writer with The Australian. Will you were at the Place de la Concord when Reagun made her international debut. Tell me what you thought when you saw her come onto the stage.
Oh, just that name, Reygun. Now I've never heard of Raygun, Like I actually not being the world's most experienced breaking reporter, Not exactly.
No.
And I actually said to my mate sitting next to me, what time is Gun? Ray on Gun Ray. It's Rey Gun, so sitting there and they introduced the sixteen Be Girls as they're called. I know that like being called athletes. Apparently they're all be Girls in Breaking and they're all wearing the Americans and the French and the Japanese. They're
wearing their funky hip hop clothes. And then Ygun comes out in the Australian team track suit, all right, And that was the first time I thought, what's going on here? What's this? The first thing I thought was Alissa Healley and the women's One Day cricket team just like it looked like the cricket in the four that were Sydney, all kind of thing, that's all right, And I literally thought she was going to get changed before she paid me out to compete. She was just in her trackings.
So they have one on one battles as they call it, which is basically just a dance on like Zoolander. And so she came out and she was you couldn't say she was breaking like the rest of them.
First came the judges verdict with zero. Then came the social media verdict. I'm trying to see they say, somebody mama hopped out to Soccerman and came to the stage and we're what is it going on here?
So Massy, you from Australian and you've done lied on your Olympics application and said that you know how to break dance. Funny rabbit kank of one.
Of those two I got moves.
So what you're gonna do?
I'm a worm.
I have a feeling that maybe we're not taking the break dancing very seriously.
She did?
She did, Mama turned up her moves.
This I say, I love her originality though, yeah, yeah, for sure, I love eibut of this stuff you ain't seen but.
At all.
Did you think at any point is this a spoof or is this a joke? Or did you know from the very beginning that actually this we were seeing someone who was just not of the same athletic standard as the other competitors.
So she qualified through the Oceania Championships. She's the reigning Oceania champion of breaking so she earned her spot and she won. So there's a tournament and the winner got together the Olympics and I'm fascinated. I can't see any pottage anywhere in that final, Like I didn't think it was a spoof and I didn't think it. I just thought that she I mean, it's funny, we're all trying to find polite ways of putting it. But she just wasn't up to that standard, like remotely up to that standard.
After the event, but before it all went sour on social media, Rachel Gunn came out to speak to the journos.
Just a lovely woman, and she was thrilled. We've been part of the Olympics. I just wanted to do it my way and it's been such an honor and what a treat and Breaking might never be here again, and it's just all been so much fun. And we're looking at her thinking, oh my gosh, she's got no idea yet of what's happening on social media. I think it was a bad It was probably a bad look for the Olympics. I don't mean just her performance. I just
think Breaking didn't suit the Olympics. It didn't fit the Olympics.
I love Rachel, and I think that what has occurred on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors and taking those and giving them airtime has been really disappointing.
Animir is the boss of the Olympic team complained publicly that trolls Will being unkind to Ray gun.
She is the best breakdancer female that we have for Australia. She has represented the Olympic team the Olympic spirit with great enthusiasm and I absolutely love her courage, I love her character and I feel very disappointed for her that she has come under the attack that she has.
And I think we could probably agree that some people have been unkind to her, but Will doesn't. The AOC and animirs have to take some responsibility for putting Rachel Gunn in a position where she was going to be humiliated internationally. Don't bear some responsibility for that.
I'm sure Rachel is probably shattered. She was trying to give everyone a bit of jow quity. But there's also from Rachel's point of view, if you're her, any athlete, if you're willing to step up into something as big as the Olympia, there's the chance that you could be praised from the roof pops as some kind of sporting hero, which everyone's happen to do. But for any professional sport or once you step out there, you're up for praise to be mocked ridicule, criticized, told how great you are,
told that you work great. So that's all part and parcel of us. There is definitely a part of it where if the AOC sends an athlete out there, there has to be some recognition of this is Olympic competition. It has to be taken seriously. But I think they do have to accept that once you become an Olympic athlete and you're in what was a high profile event, you're up to be judged.
Coming up. It was an otherwise stunning games for Australia, So how did we do so well? In a fortnite it'll be the Paralympics where everyone has an incredible backstory. We'll have all the action twenty four to seven at the Australian dot com dot au for our subscribers. We'll be back after this break. Olympic Games usually follow a pattern for Australia. We start very strong in the pool with gold medals and advance Australia fair coming from all directions.
We all love Week one bid in the Olympiads of recent memory. Weeks two and three are a little less spine tingling as we watch ken you win the marathon, Sweden win the high jump and China win everything else. By the closing ceremony, Australians are cheerfully celebrating a sixteenth place in the sports we know when not very good. At Paris has been different. The golds have kept coming in sports we don't normally prosper in road cycling, skateboarding, BMX.
This Olympics Australia has done incredibly well, mind blowingly well. So what's changed that's incredible?
I think one thing that has happened a lot of other countries have become stronger and they started taking medals off the powerhouses as well. And at the swimming it gets and it's not all America winning and swimming well. My impression is across all the sports, a lot more nations are winning medals, which are taking some off Great Britain and taking some off France and taking some off Japan. So the top two America and China are miles ahead, and then the rest of the top ten is a
bit of a bunch and we're just snuck through. But like the men's doubles tennis at Roland Garos, it was a colosst but they were John Piers and Matt Ebden, a couple of thirty six year olds who live on the same street in per wives of best friends, kids play together, all that kind of stuff. Unseated doubles players in a field that had Rafa and Adal and Alchoraz playing together and all that kind of thing, and that
was just the unlikelyest gold medal. It's lucky for Australia that the swimming is the first week because it's everyone on o high from night one. So Arion one gold that first night and the women's relay one gold that first night, so Australia's got two gold medals the first night. It's all celebratory back at the village. Whereas I think if swimming was weak too, if we had the ass the first week would be down and it wouldn't have that same But I think they all fed each other
off a bit. The impression I get is that they just had a ball. They're in Paris, the whole backdrop is one of the great cities in the world. They've done incredibly well. I think Anime is even in the way. I think she was a bit off the mark with defending ray Gun, because like some form of comment was always going to happen once they sent her out there. But I think in a way that was also an example of Anna just airs deeply about all these athletes, and I'm sure the way she is around the village
just constantly encouraging them. She's done great things as an Olympian, so they've got someone there who's actually done it, who's spurring them on. The impression I get is that she's whipped up this fantastic tea even spirit. I think that's been part of it. But Anna and everytt they should be incredibly proud of themselves.
Will Swanton is a sports writer with The Australian. You can check out his reporting right now at the Australian dot com dot au