AOC CONDEMNS PETITION TARGETING BREAKDANCER RACHAEL GUNN

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On August 15, 2024, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) strongly condemned an online petition targeting breakdancer Rachael Gunn, calling it a baseless and harmful attack.

The peti­tion, which demands an inves­ti­ga­tion into Gun­n’s selec­tion for the Paris Olympics, has been accused of incit­ing hatred against the ath­lete.

Rachael Gunn, a 36-year-old uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er from Aus­tralia, is known in the break­danc­ing com­mu­ni­ty as B‑Girl Ray­gun. After los­ing all three of her bat­tles, she faced intense crit­i­cism online and in the media. Despite her chal­lenges, the peti­tion on change.org has gath­ered over 45,000 sig­na­tures, call­ing for an apol­o­gy from both Gunn and Aus­trali­a’s Olympic Chef de Mis­sion, Anna Mear­es.

In response to the grow­ing back­lash, Anna Mear­es pub­licly defend­ed Gunn dur­ing a recent media con­fer­ence. She firm­ly stood against the wave of online trolling direct­ed at the ath­lete.

AOC Chief Exec­u­tive Matt Car­roll issued a state­ment con­demn­ing the peti­tion as “vex­a­tious, mis­lead­ing, and bul­ly­ing.” He empha­sized that the peti­tion has stirred pub­lic ani­mos­i­ty with­out any fac­tu­al basis. “No ath­lete rep­re­sent­ing their coun­try should be treat­ed this way,” Car­roll assert­ed. “We stand firm­ly behind Dr. Gunn and Anna Mear­es dur­ing this time.”

The AOC has for­mal­ly request­ed that change.org remove the peti­tion imme­di­ate­ly. Car­roll fur­ther clar­i­fied that Gunn was select­ed through a trans­par­ent and inde­pen­dent process, under­scor­ing the integri­ty of the selec­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, Car­roll expressed deep con­cern over the base­less accu­sa­tions against Anna Mear­es. “She played no role in the qual­i­fi­ca­tion events or the nom­i­na­tion of ath­letes,” he added.

The Ath­letes For Free­dom Foun­da­tion stands unit­ed with the AOC against hatred and bul­ly­ing. Treat­ing peo­ple with dig­ni­ty and respect remains para­mount.