Don’t Let the Sparkles Fool You
On gymnastics and beauty politics.
Gymnastics is a sport of contradictions. At once the marquee event of the Summer Olympics, it is otherwise so absent from mainstream sports coverage that dedicated gymnastics viewers call those who only tune in every Olympiad “four-year fans.” It is also a sport where rhinestones, false eyelashes, and hair bows are as much a part of the spectacle of the sport as break-neck feats of athleticism, gravity-defying acrobatics, and pure strength.
With the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics on the horizon, gymnastics is back in the spotlight again. Last month, after a rather brutal trials that left many top contenders out of the competition due to injury, U.S.A. Gymnastics named the five women who will represent Team U.S.A. in Paris. Even with a few of their top names out of the running, the U.S. women are still favored to win gold during the team competition. Sparkles aside, gymnastics takes no priosners.
To commemorate the team selection, Nike posted a celebratory Instagram post showcasing Jordan Chiles, the Tokyo silver medalist who made the team once again to return for a second Olympics in Paris: “Don’t let the sparkles fool you,” reads the Nike copy alongside an image of Chiles as she prepares to perform her floor routine.
This post is perhaps one of the few times I’ve seen an ad directly address those aesthetic contradictions in gymnastics. The highly-engaged fans on the gymnastics subreddit were somewhat divided on its messaging: Is it demeaning to Chiles that the focus is on her sparkly uniform rather than her athletic skills? Or is it radical that such symbols of hyper-feminity are allowed to be on full-on display in one of the most physically-demanding sports? I guess it depends how you look at it.
Gymnastics encompasses many disciplines, but when we say “gymnastics” most of us are likely referring to women’s artistic gymnastics, the sport that is today dominated by Simone Biles and other American women and was once the domain of Romania and other Eastern Bloc countries. While the women’s division is the default to most contemporary viewers, it is an outgrowth of men’s gymnastics. Women’s artistic gymnastics debuted at the 1928 Olympics, but only after it was modified to decrease the physicality and strength of the men’s discipline to instead showcase elegance, balance and flexibility — traits coded as more “feminine” and thus suitable for female athletes.
The sport has evolved considerably in the last century, and the kind of gymnastics athletes like Chiles are doing don’t look at all like the more balletic performances of decades past. Acrobatics and tumbling are far more crucial elements for today’s female gymnasts, making it more in line with the men’s discipline. But there are still vestiges of those more dance-centric origins; while both men’s and women’s gymnastics include the floor exercise, only the women are required to perform to music and combine dance choreography with twists and acrobatics. Jade Carey, the reigning Olympic champion on floor, has often been penalized for her lack of “artistry” or dance skills on the floor exercise, even while she is one of the most powerful tumblers in the world.
But that extra burden on the female atheltes to “perform” is also perhaps what has made it a more popular sport than the comparatively sober men’s version. A clip of UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi’s vibrant floor routine went viral in 2019, achieving more than 245 million views on YouTube in a rare moment of non-Olympics gymnastics popularity.
And almost paradoxically, as the sport has become more athletic and powerful, it has also become more sparkly. Influenced by cheerleading and figure skating, female gymnasts have donned increasingly elaborate leotards each year. American female gymnasts wore leotards with 6,400 crystals to the Tokyo Games in 2021 — in Paris, they will wear uniforms with more than 10,000 crystals. Makeup has grown more and more showmanlike as well, with the likes of Russia’s Aliya Mustafina beloved for her smokey cat eye as well as her medal-winning routines.
And gymnasts have been punished for not conforming to beauty standards as well. American gymnast and Olympic champion Gabby Douglas was criticized online for sporting “messy” hair during the 2016 Olympics. Dutch gymnast Céline van Gerner wore such elaborate Cats-inspired makeup to the 2018 European Championships that the International Federation of Gymnastics placed a ban on overly “heavy” makeup. Jackson Harrison, the non-binary gymnast who competes for the Arizona State men’s gymnastics team, said they were asked not to wear makeup to nationals after doing so all season.
Women’s gymnastics is changing yet again. While it used to be dominated by girls — by which I mean literal girls; during the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, NBC’s coverage painted the eventual all-around champion Nastia Liukin as over-the-hill at 18 in comparison to fresh-faced 16-year-old Shawn Johnson — today’s top female gymnasts are adults. The women’s all-around podium at the 2023 World Championships was made up entirely of gymnasts in their twenties; four of the five women on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team going to Paris are in their twenties. The top two contenders for the women’s all-around title, Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and Simone Biles of the U.S., are returning for their third Olympics.
That increased longevity could have seismic effects on the sport. Part of what made gymnasts so susceptible to the sexual abuse of Larry Nassar is that it is a discipline that, historically, has been built around rewarding compliancy from little girls. Gymnasts are groomed to take order from adults on how to train, feed, and condition their bodies, and until recently largely reached the pinnacles of their careers before they entered adulthood. At the London 2012 Olympics, the five U.S. gymnasts who took home the team gold ranged in age from just fifteen to eighteen.
That control also extended to their physical presentation. The former U.S. team coordinator Marta Karolyi — one of the figures painted as responsible for enabling Nassar’s rampant abuse — reportedly favored white and pink leotards, the former for how they showed off the gymnasts’ abs.
Now that adult gymnasts are not just continuing with but finding great success in the sport into their adulthood, I am curious how their aesthetic presentations will evolve with them. These aren’t sixteen-year-olds being shuffled onto the world stage, but grown women who subsequently have far more agency over how they present themselves. Through social media, gymnasts like Simone Biles are now able to speak directly to their fans, with some using the popular get-ready-with-me genre of makeup video to do so. The attention to their appearance has also widened their sponsorship opportunities, crucial to any athlete’s financial prospects; Rebeca Andrade has been an ambassador for Brazilian makeup brand Vult since 2021, while American gymnast Shilese Jones recently snagged a Nyx partnership.
There will be many exciting moments in gymnastics to watch at the Paris Games — Simone Biles’ Olympic return, Brazil’s battle for its first team medal, Kaylia Nemour’s potential to win Algeria a gold medal in Paris after the French federation royally screwed her over. And personally, I’ll be looking out for the sparkles as well.