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The sportswear brand Nike is again at the center of a scandal. Following the unveiling of the new uniform for the US track and field team for this summer's Paris Olympics, athletes called it too overt and sexist.
The women's kit was unveiled on Thursday, April 11. It immediately caused criticism from female athletes: they stated that when creating the form, they gave priority to cheapness, not functionality.
Former American track and field athlete Lauren Fleshman, the 2006 and 2010 US 5,000-meter champion, published a post on her Instagram page criticizing women's sports uniforms.
Sorry, but show me one WNBA or NWSL team that would express admiration for this uniform. This is for Olympic athletics. Professional athletes need to be able to compete without having to keep a constant vigil behind their pubes, exposing every vulnerable part of their bodies. Women's kits should promote productivity, mental and physical. If these clothes were really useful for physical performance, men would wear them. This is not an elite sports kit for athletics. It's a costume born of patriarchal forces no longer welcome and unnecessary to bring attention to women's sports. […] It's enough to make it difficult for half the population, she wrote.
According to American hurdler Colleen Quigley, underpants with a very high cut on the inner thighs “are absolutely not made for performance “.
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women's running clothing brand Oiselle also joined the discussion, wryly suggesting that the kit was a result of “when you run out of fabric after designing a men's kit…”.
Nike clarified that this is not the final result of the uniform for the US team. For its part, the company emphasized that men's and women's sports kits include about 50 items of clothing for various events. In particular, female athletes can choose a set with both underpants and shorts, while at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 there were only underpants.
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