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Louise Thomas
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If you’ve been tuning into the Paris 2024 Olympics, chances are you watched the US men’s gymnastics team take home their first Olympic medal since 2008. But what seems to have caught people’s attention more – though, not as much as “pommel horse guy” – are their uniforms.
In fact, it appears that there’s really only one question on everybody’s mind: Are the US men’s gymnasts wearing footie pajamas?
When it comes to Team USA uniforms, we haven’t always had the best track record. This year, American fashion label Ralph Lauren once again designed the opening and closing ceremony uniforms for the Paris 2024 Olympics. However, some people believed the uniforms looked more like what Will Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby would wear in Talladega Nights. Team USA’s uniforms for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics also received some mocking comments online, comparing the all-white looks to something that a snobby prep schooler would wear to go skiing.
As for Team USA’s women gymnasts, such as nine-time gold medalist Simone Biles, their dazzling red-white-and-blue leotards for this year’s Olympics were made using more than 47,000 Swarovski crystals. So why, then, do the men’s gymnasts get to wear long johns?
“Is there a legitimate reason why in women’s gymnastics they have to have their leotards like that but in men’s gymnastics they can wear full length pants?” one person recently asked on X, formerly Twitter.
“I LOVE that the male gymnasts wear little footie pajamas,” another fan said. “I’m sure there’s a legit reason but it feels so whimsical to me as someone who doesn’t know anything about men’s gymnastics.”
A third viewer wrote: “This is no hate at all, like y’all do you, but men’s gymnastics is the silliest thing I’ve ever seen and it’s solely because they’re wearing footie pajamas.”
Really, they aren’t long johns or footie pajamas at all. Upon closer look at the US men’s gymnastics team uniforms, the red socks and pants aren’t actually connected. Instead, male gymnasts wear stirrup pants, which wrap around the bottom of the feet, for safety and scoring.
Ian Gunther, a four-time NCAA team champion gymnast, revealed in a 2022 video how the tighter pants make it less likely that the gymnasts will catch their hands on the fabric. “It’s not because we think it looks good,” he joked.
“Loose clothing can be a safety hazard,” Gunther explained, as he demonstrated on the pommel horse. “Because our hands are going so close to our legs, it’s easy to catch our thumbs and dislocate them. It can also cause us to just fall in unexpected ways. By wearing tight-fitting pants, it’s much more difficult to catch your hand.”
As for scoring, Gunther shared that it’s much easier to judge how bent their knees are in tight clothing compared to loose clothing.
Fans can catch the US men’s gymnastics uniforms again on Saturday, August 3, for the men’s gymnastics floor exercise final. The men’s pommel horse final is also set to take place on Saturday at 11:15 am ET, where viral celebrity Stephen Nedoroscik will once again show off his expert skills on the pommel horse.
