The weird light-grey patch was doomed to draw attention to the crotch area and spur a barrage of tweets, either poking fun at the costume and its “creative” designer, or calling it a disgrace. And if you have been wondering whether these uniforms are only for female athletes, don’t worry there is a male “edition,” too.
Uniform designer 1: Our new uniforms need to reflect the elegant and strong aesthetic of speed skating.
— sarah_haskins (@sarah_haskins) 8 февраля 2018 г.
Uniform designer 2: And highlight the crotch.
Uniform designer 1: duh of course. Gotta pull the eye right there! pic.twitter.com/BEpWBB2xLN
Some could not simply comprehend the very idea behind it and probably didn’t even need to understand:
Don’t care the science behind this, this look is not OK (📷 by @rodger_sherman) pic.twitter.com/23EM04qtZR
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) 19 февраля 2018 г.
Right pic.twitter.com/jbwJfXMhBJ
— Dominique Eastwick (@DominiEastwick) 19 февраля 2018 г.
Ok who designed our speed skating uniforms? Other teams have the friction patches without putting a bulls eye on the crotch! Fire that guy and next time focus group the uniform. Geez!
— Jeannette Wiggins (@LadyWiggin) 21 февраля 2018 г.
If I were on the speed skating team, I would refuse to wear this uniform. It's like you're advertising your crotch.
— JUNE VENDETTI (@JuneBug26) 21 февраля 2018 г.
Who the hell was the moron who designed the competition uniform of the speed skating women of USA?
— Selene Σελήνη CW (@SeleneSCW) 15 февраля 2018 г.
Who the hell came up with the idea of highlighting the crotch area of these women??? pic.twitter.com/VCo7GMDOJ3
Ok, I’m really not understanding the US speed skating uniforms — the light gray on the crotch & inner thighs has me like — what? 🤨
— Michele Wandke (@MicheleWandke) 19 февраля 2018 г.
Some users even reminded everyone of other strange uniforms, which the American speed skaters’ seems to have outstripped:
Beats the Colombian women's cycling uniforms from a few year ago. pic.twitter.com/C7GFnM4asS
— Ivan Herndon (@eaglescout1984) 19 февраля 2018 г.
The designer of the 2018 USA women’s speed skating uniform designer must have used the Colombian cycling teams uniform as inspiration pic.twitter.com/GTGXP2fzyX
— Jeannette Wiggins (@LadyWiggin) 21 февраля 2018 г.
Reddit users also showed solidarity with Twitterians, saying it looked like a giant target:
“Ha-ha I kept laughing as I watched the Olympics because of these suits, my husband thought I was ridiculous. Glad to know I wasn’t the only one thinking it looks like a giant target on their vagina,” wrote user nicknamed ilikepeopl.
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“I can imagine the design team stoned, laughing, and saying, "No way is this going to make it into production,” said martinelee07.
Apparently, there is an adequate explanation for the oddly designed uniform:
“The black regions are padded for warmth. The silver colored crotch material is a carbon synthetic that cannot be coated with anything to color match it. The amount of friction that it would generate if it were color matched would slow them down by fractions of a second. Same thing with the black material, these are just slightly modified navy skinsuits,” user nicknamed Jnetpodx elaborated.
