Girls athletes have spoken out after pictures of the U.S. Olympic uniforms, with the Nike-designed apparel displayed on a model, had been launched on Thursday. The ladies’s outfit is being criticized for its notably high-cut panty line and Reuters reported that athletes say the emphasis appears to be on look fairly than performance.
“They’re completely not made for efficiency,” U.S. steeplechaser Colleen Quigley advised Reuters. Retired U.S. distance runner Lauren Fleshmen, an advocate for girls in sports activities, additionally slammed the outfits, writing on Instagram: “Girls’s kits ought to be in service to efficiency, mentally and bodily. If this outfit was actually useful to bodily efficiency, males would put on it.” She added: “This isn’t an elite athletic package for observe and discipline. It is a costume born of patriarchal forces which can be now not welcome or wanted to get eyes on girls’s sports activities.”
Runners questioned whether or not girls had been concerned within the design of the outfits. In a press release by Nike, government John Hoke mentioned the corporate labored “immediately with athletes all through each stage of the design course of,” with USATF seconded that, saying “athlete choices and decisions had been the driving drive for USATF within the planning course of with Nike.” Vice chairman of attire innovation at Nike, Janett Nichol, advised CBS Sports activities that the uniforms “carry out on the highest stage” and insisted athletes had been concerned within the testing course of.
The Nike uniforms for the USA girls’s Olympic observe and discipline group have sparked appreciable jokes, controversy and claims of sexism.
The ladies’s uniforms, notably the bodysuits, have been criticized for being overly revealing. They function a excessive reduce on the legs which… pic.twitter.com/qVDg4nUksq
— MMAIN (@DecaDigest) April 13, 2024
In response to criticisms, Nike introduced plans to supply Olympic athletes customized tailoring providers. Quigley emphasised the significance of correctly becoming uniforms, stating, “Our our bodies are all totally different, and it appears foolish to anticipate us to compete on the highest stage of our sport and not using a correctly match uniform.” Nike confirmed to Reuters that tailors can be accessible for Olympic and Paralympic athletes in Paris.
For the Paris 2024 Olympics, Nike will present athletes with unitard choices that includes each briefs and shorts, whereas solely briefs had been provided on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Olympic kits had been showcased in a launch occasion in Paris, with U.S. middle-distance runner Athing Mu sporting briefs and U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson donning a model of the unitard with shorts.
Whereas it’s questionable why the outfit that Nike selected to disclose first was the unitard, they’re emphasizing the variety of choices accessible to the athletes. U.S. Olympic pole vaulter Katie Moon spoke out on social media, explaining that whereas she felt what was proven on the model was regarding, “we now have at the least 20 totally different mixtures of a uniform to compete in with all of the tops and bottoms accessible to us.”
To those who have an opinion on the USA observe and discipline uniforms, I ask you to please learn this 🤗 pic.twitter.com/cSdJKXykJQ
— Katie Moon (@ktnago13) April 12, 2024
The controversy surrounding the apparel of feminine Olympians continues, with current modifications in rules relating to competitors put on. Gymnastics New Zealand lately up to date its apparel guidelines to permit girls and ladies to put on shorts or leggings over their leotards. Equally, through the Tokyo Olympics, the ladies’s gymnastics group from Germany made a press release towards the sexualization of the game by carrying full-length bodysuits.
Fleshman expressed concern that the revealing uniforms distract athletes from specializing in efficiency. She highlighted the discomfort and self-consciousness brought on by such apparel, notably on a world stage, the place athletes ought to be free to push their limits with out pointless distractions.
“Skilled athletes ought to be capable to compete with out dedicating mind area to fixed pube vigilance or the psychological gymnastics of getting each susceptible piece of your physique on show,” she wrote on Instagram. “It looks like what the athlete desires and what the athlete wants was not the No. 1 precedence,” provides Quigley.
