Leotard-mania, part 2

More sparkles. More patriotism. More gymnastics. More drama.

Last week, we looked at the women’s gymnastics leotards worn during the pre-lims and all-around and team finals. Now that the gymnastics portion of the Paris Olympics is over, let’s look at the leos worn for the event finals.

And spoiler alert: there was drama.

USA

For her vault redemption tour, Jade Carey wore the same deep blue leo that Simone Biles wore for the all-around final and it looked great. And Jade nailed her vaults and won bronze. Go Jade. I think my favorite of the events final leos was the high-necked red one worn by Simone for the vault final and Suni Lee for uneven bars, where they won gold and bronze, respectively.

I’m surprised by how much I liked Simone’s beam final leo, which looked a little blah in the promo photos but the ombre and crystals actually looked really elegant in motion. Uncharacteristically, Simone fell off the beam, taking her out of medal contention, but the even weirder part was that she got a 0.3 deduction for “not saluting properly.”

The blue and red ombre she wore to floor is still… not my favorite. We’ll speak no more of it.

Maybe white leos really are cursed, as gymnastic fans like to say. Suni, a gold medal contender going into the beam final, wore white for beam but had a nasty fall. Jordan Chiles was favored to win bronze on floor behind Simone and Rebeca Andrade; she also wore the white leo and was the last one to go on the floor. She slotted into fifth place when her score was announced, but an inquiry from her coaches raised her to third, above the two Romanians who, as a nation, are… not taking it well. More on that later.

But I do like the white leo! It’s surprisingly detailed with webbing-like sleeves and subtle blue and red stripes on the back. At least there’s that.

Team USA leotards are designed by sportswear company GK Elite, and you can actually buy replica versions of the ones worn at the Paris Games. USA leotards used to be supplied by Under Armour, so I’m curious how what is undoubtedly a hugely valuable partnership is decided — if I was a five-year-old gymnastics students, I’d want one of these things.

Italy

I still don’t love the Italian leos, but Alice D’Amato and Manila Esposito cleaned up in the beam final while almost everyone else fell, so I guess we need to talk about them. There’s nothing particularly Italian about them, except the red color. The red and purple one have the same design, which looks to me like an early 2000s paisley bandana. Put it on a hankerchief top, not an Olympic leotard.

They also seem to have the least variety of leos in their arsenal, as Alice and Manila wore the same purple version of the design for both the beam and floor finals, which were on the same day. Other athletes that were in both those finals, i.e. Simone and Rebeca, switched up their attire.

Their leotards are made by Freddys, an Italian brand that seems to be known for its jeggings more than athleticwear. I maintain that they have questionable taste. Maybe that’s the most Italian thing of all.

Algeria

Oh, Kaylia Nemour. What an ending to her first Olympics. After Qiu Qiyuan nailed her uneven bars routine in the final, Kaylia needed to deliver the routine of her life to win. And she did, so much so that she just about burst into tears right after her dismount. I can’t imagine the pressure of years of training and being jerked around by your home country, to then finally come to the moment where you show what it was all for in front of what is still essentially a home crowd in Paris.

White leotards are popular in these finals. For a moment, I thought the crystals on her leotard were red and blue, maybe in some weird nod and/or snub to France but no, they are in fact red and green, accentuated by the green of the Algerian flag she held up after winning gold. Her leos are designed by sportswear brand Ozone, whose leotards we saw a lot of in Paris, more on that in a moment.

Brazil

Ozone also makes Brazil leotards, which we saw quite a few of given Rebeca Andrade made it to every final except uneven bars. And I didn’t mention her in the previous post, but Ozone also supplied leotards for Lynzee Brown, the first female gymnast to represent Haiti at the Olympics.

Again, I do think these are designed by or with Jade Barbosa, as she designed their leotards for last year’s worlds and these have a similar style, but I haven’t seen confirmation she did this batch as well. The teal one Rebeca wore in the floor final, where she narrowly won gold over Simone, is the same design of the yellow one she and Flávia wore to the AA final. I do like the yellow better, but Rebeca still rocks the teal, accentuated by her matching eyeliner. Júlia Soares and Rebeca wore the same purple one to beam final, which feels a little overly busy, but at least a color we don’t often see.

The very pale blue-almost white one Rebeca wore to vault finals was a bit of a mess though in the fit — on video you could see it weirdly gaping around the neck due to the cutout. But they love a cutout on Team Brazil, and if doesn’t bother Rebeca during her impeccable vaults who are we to argue.

China

China did not win any golds in women’s gymnastics, but they did win the best leotards competition. At least in my opinion — they’re all distinct in color and design and yet look like they came from the same collection. And they use crystals in a way that isn’t just sparkle motion it and call it a day. Zhou Yaqin’s green leo for the beam final is probably my favorite of the whole games, but I do love that Qiu Qiyuan, Ou Yushan and Zhang Yihan all color-coordinated their scrunchies to their purple and yellow leotards.

Even without topping the podium, they still had a succesful showing. Qiu Qiyuan snagged silver on uneven bars with a fantastic routine, while Zhou Yaqin held onto the beam silver even though she grasped the beam to stop herself from falling. Which, considering the splatfest that followed, was still well-earned.

I’m surprised to learn that their leotards are designed by the Slovenian sportswear company Anta, a brand I’m not familiar with. Unlike GK Elite, they don’t seem to promote their affiliation in Team China in any way, but they do have a collaboration with Kyrie Irving. I’m not sure when that was launched but I’m guessing it was after he was dropped by Nike for anti-semitic comments and general weirdness.

Great Britain

Ok, I was wrong. Great Britain did not only bring dour gray leotards. They also had this cheery red one, worn here by veteran Becky Downie for the uneven bars final. It’s very sleek, althought that one blue line down the middle is going to annoy me forever. Although she came off the bars on her namesake skill, Becky had an otherwise great routine in what’s probably her last Olympics.

Their leotards are designed by Adidas, which makes all of Great Britain’s Olympic kits.

Canada

Ellie Black’s vault final leotard looks like a candy cane and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Shallon Olsen represented the maple leaf contingent, albeit in an icy blue. It’s all giving winter, which is on brand for Canada. They are also by GK.

Romania

Well, Romania did not have a great day. Sabrina Maneca-Voinea fell off beam, but had a chance to redeem herself on floor. But there she tied with her teammate Ana Barbosu, who beat Sabrina on the tiebreaker due to having higher execution. Sabrina’s coaches put in an inquiry, which was denied. Ana was holding onto third when the final competitor, Jordan Chiles, finished her routine and came in fith. Ana started celebrating, albeit prematurely — her coaches did not seem to tell her that Jordan’s coaches had also submitted an inquiry, which was then approved, bringing Jordan to third and Ana to fourth.

Now Sabrina’s coaches are allegedly saying her out-of-bounds penalty was a mistake and ought to be reexamined. If they were to remove the 0.1 OOB penalty, that would put her into third, above Jordan and Ana. Nadia Comaneci is subtweeting about it. Messy messy messy.

However, Ana remains admirably positive about the whole thing even after getting jostled out of the medals, sharing on Instagram that she was proud of her fourth place finish — as she ought to be. And fortunately for my purposes, she shared that their leos are provided by French company Moreau Sport. Moreau made France’s leotards for last year’s worlds it seems, but not for this Olympics, which were designed by Le Coq Sportif.

I imagine all this must rather sting as up until the mid-2000s, Romania dominated women’s gymnastics, before the USA became the unstoppable force that it is now. Gone too are their glory days of leotards. These seafoam blue ones Sabrina and Ana wore are fine, but a far cry from Catalina Ponor’s signature black back when Romania was on every podium. Maybe they’ll bring back more black for their redemption tour next year.