When the five women on Japan’s artistic gymnastics team compete at the Paris Olympics this summer, they will wear what everyone seems to have an opinion about: leotards.
Three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, female gymnasts representing Germany made headlines for their unusual long-sleeved, long-legged unitards, which they said was a stand against sexualization in the sport.
The Germans received widespread praise for their bold choice to forgo the traditional leotard — which leaves the legs and part of the buttocks bare — and some critics braced for the start of the unitard era.
But in Japan and elsewhere, it hasn’t happened just yet.
Earlier this month, the Japan Gymnastics Association and sportswear brand Mizuno unveiled newly designed uniforms that the men’s and women’s teams will be wearing at the Paris Games. The two mannequins depicting men had a tank top and loose shorts combo and a tank top and long pants combo. The female mannequins wore two variations of bikini-cut leotards.
“There have been no requests for unitards this time,” the association said when asked by The Japan Times whether female gymnasts have the option of wearing full-body outfits at the Paris Olympics.
“Gymnastics is a scoring-based sport so making an impression is important. Compared to gymnasts from Western countries, Japanese gymnasts have shorter stature and shorter arms and legs. Unitards can make them appear smaller, restrict their movements and make them feel constricted. We believe it’s important for top athletes to consider these negative effects and make the choice for themselves,” the association said.
“Stopping the sexualization of women in sports is how we create a safe environment and help women fulfill their potential as athletes.”
Japan’s women’s gymnastics team includes Shoko Miyata, Rina Kishi, Mana Okamura, Haruka Nakamura and Kohane Ushioku — all teenagers and all Games debutants. The rhythmic gymnastics team did not qualify for the Paris Olympics.
Germany failed to qualify a full women’s artistic gymnastics team, but Sarah Voss, Pauline Schaefer and Helen Kevric will compete as individual athletes. The German Gymnastics Federation said in an email they are free to decide if they want to wear a leotard or unitard.
“We cannot actually say long or short. They have direct contact to our designer and (can) discuss with her the design of the suits,” the email read.
The leotard debate
Gymnastics is among the most watched Olympic sports. It is also a sport that has been rocked by reports of abuse and cover-ups in recent years, including the high-profile case of former U.S. national gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who was given a de facto life sentence over the sexual abuse of many young female gymnasts under the guise of medical treatment.
Six-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman, one of Nassar’s many victims, responded to calls that gymnasts should change what they wear in order to prevent abuse by tweeting “Leotards are not the problem,” saying that blaming leotards would be a form of victim-shaming.
Some proponents of leotards say that female gymnasts wear leotards that typically covers just the torso (with sleeve options) for safety purposes, so clothes don’t snag on equipment, for example, and also so coaches and judges are better able to see the lines of the body to help spot mistakes like bent arms and knees.
Despite these justifications to support the use of leotards, male gymnasts wear clothes that cover more of their body. They wear loose shorts for their floor exercise and vault, and long pants and socks on the other four apparatuses — rings, pommel horse, parallel bars and horizontal bar.
Wearing unitards instead of leotards isn’t against the sport’s rules, but it is a break in tradition.
The International Gymnastics Federation allows unitards that cover the body from “hip to ankle” as long as they’re “of elegant design,” but most women have preferred to stick with standard leotards. American superstar gymnast Simone Biles, who is 142 centimeters tall, says she prefers the leg-lengthening look of leotards.
Izumi Yonezawa, a professor of women’s studies at Konan Women’s University in Kobe who specializes in fashion culture theory, thinks the reason there are very few unitard converts has to do with the fact that gymnastics is a subjectively judged sport.
“Japan’s women’s gymnastics team features elaborate costumes and music and that’s part of their appeal. Women are expected to do graceful moves — uneven bars are solely for women, and women’s floor routines are longer than men’s. They want to express their femininity through fashion, which is likely why leotards are chosen over unisex unitards,” Yonezawa says.
Still, some have expressed they are simply not comfortable wearing leotards. Voss, who opted for a unitard at the Tokyo Olympics, and former Swiss artistic gymnast Ariella Kaeslin have each expressed why they are uncomfortable with gymnastics’ traditional attire.
“To do splits and jumps, sometimes the leotards are not covering everything, sometimes they slip and that’s why we invented a new form of leotard so that everyone feels safe around competitions and training,” Voss told the BBC a few months prior to the Tokyo Games.
Kaeslin has expressed similar sentiments.
“Gymnasts are extremely exposed. The judges get an up-close view of you on the balance beam, and for some elements you spread your leaping legs full throttle towards their face. That’s uncomfortable,” Kaeslin told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung in 2021.
Some gymnasts use “butt glue” so the fabric doesn’t slide up their buttocks during competition and tape over their bra straps. Others simply quit the sport after puberty because they don’t want to wear the leotard or deal with related body image concerns. Studies have shown that outdated uniform guidelines are driving girls away from playing sports.
A matter of choice
The German gymnasts were promoting freedom of choice when they swapped their leotards for long unitards at the Tokyo Olympics. They wore unitards because they preferred them, and hoped to inspire other athletes to wear what makes them feel comfortable.
Japanese gymnast Aiko Sugihara, who will travel to Paris as a reserve, embraces the idea of choice. She too has felt insecure in her own uniform and thinks the cons of high-cut leotards outweigh the pros.
“The benefit of a leotard is that it makes your legs look longer, but you have to be concerned about your underwear or sanitary pad showing. Judges will actually deduct points if your underwear is visible. It can be hard to focus on your performance,” Sugihara told The Japan Times.
Sugihara also said seeing voyeuristic photos of herself taken at unflattering angles circulating through social media has affected her mental health.
But despite these issues, fear of slipping and resistance to change have kept her from wearing unitards, she said.
Instead, Sugihara decided to combine the best of both uniform styles by designing her very own biker-short style leotard as an option for competitors that she calls Ai-tard, a portmanteau of her first name and leotard. She competed at the NHK Trophy in May wearing the Ai-tard.
“I want to help young gymnasts and their parents alleviate anxiety and stress around wearing leotards,” she said.
It’s not just gymnastics’ dress code that is criticized as sexist. Figure skating, beach volleyball and track and field are among the other Olympic sports in which discrepancies remain between what women and men are required or encouraged to wear during competition.
In April, Nike came under fire for its skimpy U.S. women’s track and field uniforms for the Paris Olympics, reigniting the debate surrounding the design of outfits for female Olympians. The New York Times described Nike’s high-cut bodysuit as “sort of like a sporty version of a 1980s workout leotard.”
“Women’s kits should be in service to performance, mentally and physically. If this outfit was truly beneficial to physical performance, men would wear it,” U.S. national champion distance runner Lauren Fleshman wrote on Instagram.
Gender-neutral future?
Who decides what women should wear at the Olympics? The International Olympic Committee charter states that national Olympic committees “have the sole and exclusive authority to prescribe and determine the clothing and uniforms to be worn, and the equipment to be used, by the members of their delegations on the occasion of the Olympic Games.”
In general, the strictness of any sport’s dress code is dependent on its governing body.
According to Mizuno, the JGA makes the big decisions on what competition clothing should look like for Japanese gymnasts — leotard or unitard, long sleeve or no sleeve, and so forth. On the possibility of creating unitards for Olympics beyond 2024, Mizuno said, “We are the official clothing supplier for the national team so if there is a request from the JGA, it’s possible.”
Mizuno has collaborated with fashion designer Hiroko Koshino to create Team Japan’s Olympic gymnastics uniforms since the 2012 Games.
Koshino said that athletes were consulted throughout the design process for 2024, and “showing the beauty of the body in motion while still covering up” is what she aimed for, explaining that the dress etiquette in Japanese culture consists of not exposing too much skin.
So, can fans expect more of these full-length bodysuits in the future, if not at the Paris Olympics? Yonezawa thinks so, and perhaps trends in school uniforms can offer a preview of how that transition might play out.
“Gendered uniforms like gakuran and sērafuku were common in junior high and high schools in Japan, but they’re now being replaced with blazers for both boys and girls,” Yonezawa says, referring to the military-style uniforms for boys and sailor-inspired uniforms for girls. “With the shift to gender-neutral uniforms, many schools are offering girls pants as an option.
“Considering this trend, we can assume that athlete dress codes, which traditionally varied for men and women, will become more gender inclusive.”
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