Courtesy of Nike
Over nearly 10 days of qualifying competitions, the country's best gymnasts were evaluated in the vault, balance beam, balance beam and floor exercise events. These qualifying events will determine who will compete in the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics, scrutinizing every competitive category representing one of the oldest sports at the intersection of art and athletics.
When Paris won the bid to host the 2024 Olympics, the city promised “the most sustainable Olympics ever,” aiming to cut its carbon footprint by more than half compared to past Olympics in London and Rio. This big promise from the City of Lights will entail the introduction of new practices into the Olympic program and may set a precedent for associated sports organizations to try things differently. For world-class gymnastics hopefuls Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera — the team's promising Olympic debutants — this promise of change oozes from a combination of innate individual talent and shared energy and style. Currently, the team is the most decorated group in the history of the USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials.
Nike has one of the longest-standing relationships with the Olympic Games and the sports world at large, providing athletes with essential sponsorship, visibility and career-building resources. And what better place to bring attention to their impact than on the world stage in Paris? When the organization's leadership knew the next U.S. team had the potential to be the most diverse team ever, Nike wanted to take an extra step to commemorate the specialness of 2024. So Nike partnered with United States Gymnastics (USAG) and worked with fashion designer Sami Miró (an eco-conscious designer and Junior Olympic gymnast herself) to create custom jackets to present to the USAG Women's Gymnastics Team Finalists.
Miro designed an off-white satin-like jacket with exposed stitching and embossed Nike check and Olympic torch logos. During her ideation process, the multitalented designer said she looked to historical motifs that represent female strength in sports, such as the Victory statue. What she discovered time and time again was that clothing is an asset that communicates diversity of skill. And she wanted to promote the same idea through her designs for the USA Gymnastics Olympic Team.
“I have a few signature design aesthetics,” Miro says. essence, She looks back at a catalogue of designs dating back to her 2014 line of bespoke reconstructed denim pieces. “One of the elements is the open seam detailing, from shirts to dresses, like the heavy consistency you see in the open seams in the leather here,” she says, gesturing to a jacket sample on a mannequin behind her. The lines and crop of the jacket are a more structured interpretation of Victory's flowing toga, playing with different shapes to replicate a similar movement in the curves and silhouette.
“Of course, we wanted to keep the sporty silhouette, but rather than overdoing it and making it really obvious what this is, we wanted to use white as a monochromatic silhouette and create something beautiful that can be seen throughout the outfits that the girls are wearing,” Miro continues. The jackets will be distributed to every member of the U.S. Women's Gymnastics Team in all events, as well as seven artistic gymnasts, two trampoline gymnasts and one rhythmic gymnast.
In addition to designing the jackets, Sami also worked on the players' full Nike look, pairing the outer layer with belted cut-out pants from the Spring 2024 Nike x Jacquemus capsule collection. The full look combined the tones of fashion's past and futuristic present, evoking elements of early 2000s Afrofuturism seen in popular Y2K-style music videos, commercials and films. The entire mise-en-scène, with Biles, Lee, Chiles, Carey and Rivera donning their final looks under a cascade of red, white and blue confetti, told a unique story from the central arena in Minneapolis where the games were held. A re-enactment of the moment would no doubt take on even more meaning if it were to take place in Paris.
Typically, the USA Gymnastics team travels in traditional tracksuits, a classic Americana fusion of athleisure and sporty fashion, but in many areas of appearance and dress code, the national athletic commission is slowly allowing athletes more freedom to express themselves and changing policies regarding hairstyles and makeup during competitions.
On the Today Show, two-time Olympic medalist and NBC Sports commentator Laurie Hernandez explained the tenacity these athletes developed on their way to winning the competition. As any champion at that level knows all too well, gymnastics is a highly technical sport with intense scrutiny on all fronts. The intensity of training and competition, along with the high profile of showmanship both nationally and internationally, can take a toll on anyone, but especially on young people. As recently as last year, 2020 silver medalist and UCLA standout Jordan Childs was considering quitting gymnastics altogether. The 23-year-old Olympic medalist, nicknamed “The Girl” for her love of Beyoncé and her unforgettable performance style, has faced years of unfair criticism, attacked for everything from the condition of her natural hair to the color of her skin to her unashamed embrace of black culture.
In an interview with NBC, Childs spoke about the impact of being so underrepresented in the sport she loves. “I wanted it to be over,” she said on the podcast “My New Favorite Olympian” because “I didn't think the sport needed me.” According to the latest NCAA data, only 8% of NCAA women's gymnasts are Black, and only 7% of gymnastics head coaches are Black. Through organizations like Brown Girls Do Gymnastics, Jordan Childs fosters partnerships with historically Black colleges and sports organizations to help develop talent. Despite the challenges she still faces as a Black woman in a highly competitive and dangerous sport, the young star is using her platform to show her peers and future generations that there is a place for them, no matter where they are. It's been less than a full day since she won a chance to compete for an Olympic gold medal, but Jordan is as down-to-earth as ever. When asked what she's most looking forward to Sunday night, Olympic Trials night, she said, “Watching the BET Awards on my phone.”
Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera shine as embodiments of strength, resilience and inspiration. Through their examples, they celebrate a long history of athletes, especially marginalized and underrepresented athletes, who have achieved their dreams and continue to inspire future dreamers. Nike is one of many organizational voices using resources to amplify athletes' voices, and by engaging more directly with the creative community, they can create new ways to bring attention to athletes' messages on global issues. A Nike representative said the company continues its commitment to “not just growing sport for women and girls, but making it better.”
The 2024 Paris Olympics are deeply embedded at the cultural intersection of arts and sport. In addition to platform measures for radical environmental consciousness (such as cardboard beds), the Olympics and its associated Cultural Olympiad will engage in serious dialogue about what it means to truly promote inclusivity and unity. For young female gymnasts, participating in an event that promotes such values underscores the importance of their roles as athletes and cultural ambassadors.
This will be Paris' third time hosting the Olympic Games, and there seems to be an urgent priority to leverage the city's heritage as a historic global city to create a visually and dialectally compelling backdrop for the serious dialogue the Olympics will convey to a global audience. Traveling in bespoke off-white ensembles by Sami Miro, Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Childs, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera will be incorporating their own stories into the ongoing narrative of why the USA Gymnastics team and the communities they represent resonate so much at the local, national and international levels.
