As we’re watching the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games, the wonderful feats of all of the unimaginable athletes are clearly prime of thoughts. However typically there are another (lower-stake) happenings that worm their means into our ideas, too. And let’s simply say, we’ve racked up a lot of questions because the Paris Video games have been unfolding.
We took a deep dive into a few of the quirks, technicalities, and different defining elements that make every sport stand out. Go forward, give the listing a learn—we guess you’ve had the identical burning questions, too. And maintain checking again right here all through August; we’ll proceed to replace this story with extra questions and solutions all through the Video games.
Why do male gymnasts’ uniforms seem like footie pajamas?
For one, as WFLA experiences, the footie pjs are literally stirrup pants and socks. And the selection of uniform is definitely for good motive, as Ian Gunther, a four-time NCAA champion at Stanford, defined in an informative TikTok two years in the past. Whereas demonstrating on totally different apparatuses, Gunther says all of it has to do with security and judging.
Unfastened-fitting clothes could be a security hazard. “As a result of our fingers are going so near our legs, it’s straightforward to catch our thumbs and dislocate them,” he says. “It might additionally simply trigger us to fall in surprising methods.”
Tighter becoming pants assist forestall gymnasts’ fingers from catching on their garments. It additionally makes it simpler for judges to see how a lot their knees are bent throughout a routine. Pants and socks are required on 4 out of the six males’s gymnastics occasions (pommel horse, rings, parallel bars and horizontal bar).
What’s that cable that fencers are tethered to?
The cable—known as a physique twine—is related to the fencer’s uniform and their sword to register when the athletes rating factors. With such a skinny blade and quick strikes, it might be extremely tough for judges to find out an correct level complete with the bare eye. That’s the place {an electrical} scoring system, which was first launched as early as 1933, is available in, in response to Olympics.com. Athletes put on an electrically conductive garment known as a lamé over the scoring space for every fencing sword kind, which picks up every level all through the bout.
Isn’t it…synchronized swimming? Why is it now known as creative swimming?
The game received a rebrand in 2017, when the worldwide governing physique modified the identify. Officers stated there was confusion over the time period “synchronized,” which truly referred to swimmers mirroring the music, not one another, in response to NBC Olympics. The change was met with a variety of criticism from athletes, a lot of whom signed a petition in opposition to the renaming on the time. However the governing physique maintained the transfer would higher illustrate what the game is about—and hopefully result in higher recognition. So, creative swimming it’s.
Why don’t male gymnasts carry out their ground routines to music?
One thing we observed whereas watching ladies on ground: numerous tunes. When the boys hit the mats? Lifeless silence. In response to Georgia Cervin, a former worldwide gymnast and writer of Levels of Issue: How Girls’s Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace, when the game was developed for ladies, they tailored the boys’s model to make it “applicable” for them. “Girls have been anticipated to do comfortable, rhythmic, flowing, sleek actions that emphasised magnificence and suppleness,” she instructed CNN. “For this reason they carry out to music, and the boys don’t. Males’s ground routines have been anticipated to emphasise power as an alternative.” Whereas there’s much more energy in ladies’s ground now, the music nonetheless stays.
Why are swimmers decked out in massive puffy coats?
Proper earlier than their race, most swimmers seem like they’re about to hike on some snow-covered trails quite than dive into the pool. In response to Swimming World Journal, the coat helps maintain the athlete heat and their muscle groups able to go. “The looser a swimmer is, the higher they are going to swim as a result of they are going to already be warmed up,” Temarie Tomley, an assistant coach for Georgia Tech, wrote. “Their temperature will then be higher as they swim and their vary of movement will likely be higher as a result of they are going to be looser.”
How do gymnasts compete throughout their interval?
Whereas the fatigue, cramps, and heavy circulate don’t make it straightforward, the very best gymnasts on the earth discover methods to take care of it and earn medals alongside the best way, as SELF reported. In 2017, six-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman instructed Cosmopolitan that she has needed to push via interval ache throughout competitions as a result of frankly, she has no different alternative. Whereas donning skin-tight leotards, gymnasts additionally need to navigate the stress of a bloody leak or a rogue tampon string, as Olympic gymnast Danusia Francis shared in an essay she wrote for Newsweek in 2021. The Jamaican athlete additionally timed her contraception tablets to skip her interval for competitions. As ladies throughout each sport have realized, having your interval throughout competitions could be an annoyance, nevertheless it’s an essential well being marker that they will work with.
Why do opponents in archery put on bucket hats?
Whereas our Gen Z buddies made bucket hats cool once more, they by no means went out of fashion for the world’s finest archers. Plainly many capturing specialists are drawn to the model of hat for its form and utility. In 2016, SB Nation got here up with a couple of theories to clarify the desire, together with that bucket hats defend your eyes with out blocking the bowstring. Author Seth Rosenthal additionally identified it’s doable that powerhouse South Korea helped lead the development. The ladies’s workforce has worn bucket hats for years, together with in Paris, the place they gained their tenth consecutive Olympic gold medal.
How do gymnasts keep away from wedgies?
They flip and fly with ease and someway keep away from main wardrobe malfunctions. That’s because of a really intentional design that ensures the material of gymnasts’ leotards doesn’t slip or slide mid routine. As Jeanne Diaz, the director of design at GK Elite, the unique supplier of American gymnasts’ on-mat apparel for the Olympics, instructed SELF, the leotard’s match and materials are key to avoiding wedgies. “A correct-fitting leotard is the best approach to keep away from back-side discomfort whereas competing,” Diaz stated. “GK has spent many years creating and innovating proprietary designs, patterns, and specialty materials to make sure an ideal match and efficiency for our athletes.”
How do you get a gymnastics transfer named after you?
One of many issues that makes the game so distinctive is that elite gymnasts have the power to create a brand new talent and etch their place in historical past by getting the transfer named after them. To perform this feat, a gymnast should efficiently carry out the talent and not using a main fault for the primary time internationally, like at a world championships or Olympic Video games, in response to the Worldwide Gymnastics Federations’ (FIG) Code of Factors. The talent have to be carried out for problem worth and meet a sure degree of problem. The problem worth and identify have to be confirmed following a technical committee evaluation of the efficiency. The gymnast’s federation is accountable for submitting movies and drawings of the proposed new component to the FIG technical committee president proper after the competitors. Up to now, Olympic champion Simone Biles has 5 components named after her, and we may see extra in Paris.
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