… that’s a funny meme, I laugh at it 
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As an aside, our kids have been together for years but finally got married in March. We had about 30 members of the Sydney Breaking Community at the reception and the dancing was wild.
We could have had the Olympic Qualifier at our reception!
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Agreed, I didn’t care for either one. But they made it to the finals. That’s why I struggle with thinking of this as a specifically “Raygun” issue rather than a broader systemic issue that comes as a result of trying to turn this artform into something quantifiable.
I’m curious now, because you’re closer to it than I am here in the US, but was there any initial reaction to her qualifying for the games? I’m very interested in knowing what this all looked like before, during, and after – especially if you could share what it was like for the casual viewers as well as people in the scene, like your DiL. That’s a lot to ask, of course, but it’s a perspective I’m interested in because here she literally exists in the world now to be an easy punchline.
Although no other country seemed to have this problem? It’s pretty clear that the two gold medalists got there on talent… @Melizmatic listed some of the issues with the selection, including that the people doing the judging weren’t part of the breaking community. Given that she go no points at the olympics, it seems an Australia specific problem, not a general problem with breaking as a competitive field.
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“Well, they made it to the top tier; so they MUST have earned it!”
Hmmm; that sounds SO familiar… now where have I heard that logical fallacy before?
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The judges were part of the international breaking community but the Australian qualifiying was organised in way that meant a lot of people didn’t take part. So the depth of competition wasn’t great.
This is an organisational failure of the selection process.
I’m just here for the dancing otters.
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Please don’t misunderstand me. I think breaking is absolutely a competitive field. But adapting such things into a “measurable” art comes with difficulties. They have had to repeatedly tweak the scoring of artistic swimming and gymnastic floor routines because there were ways to game the system at the cost of interesting performances. I’d like to think they learned from their experiences there, but new art forms come with new challenges especially when different groups are responsible for them. Better performers (in my opinion as someone who doesn’t understand the scoring criteria) made it to the top in the end, so something is working. But there are going to be hiccups along the way. “Raygun” making it into the Olympics is one such hiccup, and whether it’s the overall scoring and interpretation of such (which in other international competitions have not netted her zero points) or an Oceania-specific problem is something I can’t say. My overall point has been that I don’t see this as simple a “Raygun” issue due to factors outside of her control that have enabled her and have somehow given her competitive advantages. (Which is ironic as hell phrasing, I know.)
Given that J Attack (the Australian B-Boy competitor) also scored low (only 2 points), let’s suppose that there could be a different methodology to the scoring.
Bearing in mind that Raygun’s best position in the world championships (she has competed in 3) was 42nd, she was probably never expected to get past the first group stage.
Morocco also did not set the competition alight.
Lots of things are difficult, and it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. 
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