Did Raygun Really Score Zero Points at the Olympics? The TRUTH Behind Her Extraordinary Olympic Judging Claim Has Been Revealed

Raygun fans can rejoice, as the Australian breakdance sensation still managed to score points at the Olympic Games in Paris.

Dr. Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has a PhD in breakdance culture and has been competing in the dance battle sport for over a decade.

However, the Australian became a global meme at the Olympics for her routine, which involved her rolling on the ground like a snake and hopping like a kangaroo. She also wore the Australian tracksuit during her competitions.

Raygun, who was in Europe after the Olympics for a planned stay, broke her silence last night after days of scorn on social media.

Although it is common knowledge that Raygun did not win a single point in her three fights at the Olympics, she admitted that this is not entirely true.

‘A fun fact for you: there are actually no points to break. If you wanted to see how the judges thought I did compared to my opponents, you can check out the comparison percentages across the board [six] criteria on Olympics.com. All the results are there.’

Daily Mail Australia has reviewed the official Olympic Rules and scorecards from the Paris Games.

To understand the scoring system, we need to go back to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, where breaking was introduced in preparation for the major Olympic debut competition in Paris 2024.

Judges were given tablets with digital DJ sliders to assess the six different criteria in breaking

Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn did not receive a single point from the judges under the newly created Trivium scoring system that was first used at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games

The judges were not impressed with Raygun’s moves, including the T-Rex pose she pulled off

Although breakdancing originated on the streets of New York City in the 1960s, it has since developed into a worldwide dance sport that includes: a fixed system of rules that allows for fair competition.

At least three or more odd numbers of judges judge the battles on six criteria: creativity, personality, technique, variation, performativity and musicality. At the Olympics there were nine judges.

Each parameter carries a different weight in a fight. Technique, performance and creativity account for 60 percent of the total score, while variation, musicality and personality make up the remaining 40 percent.

After each round, the judges cast their votes and the one with the most points is declared the winner.

One part of Raygun’s claim was correct, there were no ‘points’ used to score the breakers. Instead, judges used DJ faders to judge dancers at the Paris Games.

It’s called the Trivium Judging System and the World DanceSport Federation, the governing body for judging athletes at the Olympic Games, first implemented the points system at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.

The technique was invented by breakdance institutes Niels ‘Storm’ Robitzky and Kevin ‘Renegade’ Gopie and has been approved by the WDSF for the Olympic Games.

“The Trivium Value System is a holistic assessment model in which all criteria are interconnected. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts,” according to the WDSF Youth Olympic Games Rulebook.

‘Therefore, the jury members must look at the entire performance, with all the content, all the aspects and how it unfolds.

‘The term ‘Trivium’ derives from medieval Latin and was intended to mean a place where three roads intersect. It was later used to describe the study of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, conceptually analogous to the three-part mind-body-soul.’

The judging criteria were divided into three categories: The Trivium, The Body: Physical Quality, The Soul: Interpretive Quality, and The Mind: Artistic Quality.

This is what the judging system looked like at the Paris Olympics, with sliders for each category. The dancer with the most ‘votes’ in their color would win the overall point from that jury

Each category is subdivided into two further categories, with a total of six sliders used to judge a breaker’s performance. Body includes technique and variation, Soul includes performativity and musicality, while Mind has creativity and personality.

If Raygun had not scored a single ‘point’ in her three fights, all six sliders would have been reset to zero.

The results of the sliders are entered into a digital scoring system. There are no ‘points’, but the winner is determined on a percentage basis.

For a dance battle, all sliders are in the middle position and both dancers are at 50 percent each.

There were nine judges in total at the Paris Olympics. Their combined scores were added up to give an overall result, red or blue. The nine judges’ scores were then added up, with the dancer who scored five or more “points” in their favor claiming victory.

Raygun did not get the favor of any of the nine judges in her three dance competitions.

The three scorecards on the official website of the Paris Olympics show that Raygun did not score a single point with any of the nine judges.

That doesn’t mean she didn’t have small victories in her competition, though. Because the scoring system only shows the judges’ overall results, it doesn’t show individual categories where Raygun could have won.

For example, with Juror 1 she could have beaten her opponent in creativity and personality. However, since she would have lost in the other four categories, it counts as an overall loss with that Juror.

If you take a closer look at the scorecards, you’ll see that Raygun did indeed score points.

In the first round, two jury members stood opposite the American dancer Logistyx, who impressed in the category originality. In the second round, two jury members were also asked about their voting behavior, namely on originality and vocabulary.

In the fight against the French winner Sya Dembélé, also known as Syssy, Raygun only scored one point in the second round, again due to his originality.

Finally, Raygun also scored two points against Lithuanian Nicka for her originality in the first round.

If you break down the scores, you can see that Raygun did earn some points from a few judges, but not enough to secure the overall win for that judge, for that round.

But even in her best rounds Raygun scored only two points, compared to 54 for her opponent. This shows how complete the results were.

However, many of the results were close, with only 1 or 2 percentage points difference.

The system is not perfect, but is considered by many to be the best method yet for scoring points as a competitive sport.

“My complaints about Trivium concern more specific features, like the use of a continuous sliding scale and the keyboard shortcuts,” amateur dancer Jason Wu wrote for Merdium.

“These parts of the framework can feasibly be revised and tested for improvement. I expect Trivium to evolve or inspire alternatives in the future.”