When you’ve been tuning into the Paris 2024 Olympics, likelihood is you watched the US males’s gymnastics group take house their first Olympic medal since 2008. However what appears to have caught individuals’s consideration extra – although, not as a lot as “pommel horse man” – are their uniforms.
In truth, it seems that there’s actually just one query on everyone’s thoughts: Are the US males’s gymnasts sporting footie pajamas?
In the case of Staff USA uniforms, we haven’t all the time had the very best observe report. This yr, American trend label Ralph Lauren as soon as once more designed the opening and shutting ceremony uniforms for the Paris 2024 Olympics. Nonetheless, some individuals believed the uniforms regarded extra like what Will Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby would put on in Talladega Nights. Staff USA’s uniforms for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics additionally acquired some mocking feedback on-line, evaluating the all-white appears to one thing {that a} snobby prep schooler would put on to go snowboarding.
As for Staff USA’s ladies gymnasts, similar to nine-time gold medalist Simone Biles, their dazzling red-white-and-blue leotards for this yr’s Olympics have been made utilizing greater than 47,000 Swarovski crystals. So why, then, do the boys’s gymnasts get to put on lengthy johns?
“Is there a legit motive why in ladies’s gymnastics they must have their leotards like that however in males’s gymnastics they’ll put on full size pants?” one individual not too long ago requested on X, previously Twitter.
“I LOVE that the male gymnasts put on little footie pajamas,” one other fan stated. “I’m positive there’s a legit motive but it surely feels so whimsical to me as somebody who doesn’t know something about males’s gymnastics.”
A 3rd viewer wrote: “That is no hate in any respect, like y’all do you, however males’s gymnastics is the silliest factor I’ve ever seen and it’s solely as a result of they’re sporting footie pajamas.”
Actually, they aren’t lengthy johns or footie pajamas in any respect. Upon nearer take a look at the US males’s gymnastics group uniforms, the crimson socks and pants aren’t really related. As an alternative, male gymnasts put on stirrup pants, which wrap across the backside of the ft, for security and scoring.
Ian Gunther, a four-time NCAA group champion gymnast, revealed in a 2022 video how the tighter pants make it much less doubtless that the gymnasts will catch their fingers on the material. “It’s not as a result of we expect it appears good,” he joked.
“Free clothes generally is a security hazard,” Gunther defined, as he demonstrated on the pommel horse. “As a result of our fingers are going so near our legs, it’s simple to catch our thumbs and dislocate them. It could possibly additionally trigger us to only fall in sudden methods. By sporting tight-fitting pants, it’s rather more tough to catch your hand.”
As for scoring, Gunther shared that it’s a lot simpler to evaluate how bent their knees are in tight clothes in comparison with unfastened clothes.
Followers can catch the US males’s gymnastics uniforms once more on Saturday, August 3, for the boys’s gymnastics ground train closing. The boys’s pommel horse closing can also be set to happen on Saturday at 11:15 am ET, the place viral superstar Stephen Nedoroscik will as soon as once more showcase his professional abilities on the pommel horse.
