I eventually found her original performances, and frankly she is shown in memes to be much worse than she actually was.
IMO she failed for two reasons:
she thought that instead of repeating the known moves she creates her own, trying to use them to tell some kind of story. Judges did not find appreciation for that
I think she was the oldest from all contestants (she is 36 and youngest contestants was 16, so less than half her age), so no way she could make things as dynamic as they did and her moves were slower
Saying the words "Break dancing" and "she creates her own moves [as why she failed]", to me, proves there's zero need for that to be an Olympic sport.
I've always kind of detested 'judged' sports, not the sports themselves but the idea of judging creative expression on a scale. Like, "We, the panel, have decreed that your moves were not funky fresh. Pop and lock your way to the locker room please."
That isn't really how the judging worked though. First they had a huge panel of judges - 9 of them. And they judge them on 5 criteria: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality. It is qualitative, but it's a comparative rating system with actual guidelines - so they each simply have to decide who did each thing better:
Maintaining physiological control while focusing on athleticism, form and spatial awareness.
The range of moves that display variation and the quantity of moves, ideally with minimal repetition.
The ability to land and perform moves smoothly, without falls or slips and while maintaining consistency and flow.
The ability to stay on beat, syncing movements to the rhythm of the music.
The capacity for improvisation, creativity and maintaining spontaneity with style and personality.
I don't think breaking necessarily needs to be in the olympics, but we're past the point of only allowing sports (looking at you, dressage) and we do have other artistic events (rhythmic gymanstics and synchro swimming). And, the scoring system for breaking was reasonable and able to determine valid winners.
Yeah judges and the MC making live commentary like "Woo girl you got the moves!" And no actual rating system already makes it a popularity contest and its not like there is a wide expansive network of smaller competitions to find the actual best performers.
It's not a sport even though it could be. It's an industry wanting representation so it can feel important.
A lot taken down due to copyright claims (shouldn't an international competition about peace be free to distribute?) so s lot of people are just recording their TV with their phones.
I don't believe a word of any of this, especially because of the unsourced line "From Reddit."
However, even if you were to lose every speck of skepticism the internet should have trained you to have, I still wouldn't care because that's fucking funny and the Olympics aren't serious business.
From what I could find, her husband's name is Samuel Free and I can't find his name listed on either the AusBreaking or DanceSport Australia websites.
Maybe some Lemmy sleuths can find something to confirm that something nefarious was going on here, but to me it just looks like the idea that her qualification was rigged is just a Reddit rumour. If anything, it looks more likely that she participated in a closed qualification system that didn't allow for the best competitors to show up
Either way, I'm unsurprised that at least one contestant (especially in a subjective event) seemed like an odd pick the first time the event was held at the Olympics.
Most Olympic athletes are young and wear fashion athletic clothes donated by endorsers who help pay them. In addition in the shooting category you're (as I understand it) allowed a certain amount of tech to help you out. This man is older, didn't wear the endorsed fashion clothes or the tech and won gold silver so he feels like a rare "every man" win in the Olympics. He is not an "every man" (believe he's a decorated military and police man in his country), but a lot more people can relate to him winning gold silver than a 14 year old who's been training for this since diapers in a fashion house outfit.