LISTEN HERE
COMMISSIONED EPISODE:
Club Gym Nerd member, Gym Coach Diana, has commissioned an episode all about the glorious leotard! Spencer, Lauren, and Jessica chat about leos leos leos; biggest leotard fails, the most patriotic, custom theme leos, Australia, cut outs, crushed velvet, rules for leotard design, technology, sewn in underpants, leotard deductions, controversies and the most notorious leotards of all time:
- In the beginning, Skorts:
- Who wore it better – the Danish in 1908 (R) or the 1948 British Team (L)?
- 1952 Helsinki: The saggy crotch era:
- 1960 Rome
- 1964 Tokyo the Boatneck era:
- 1968 Mexico City – Sewn in Underpants and Elastic Band Revolution:
- 1972 Munich – Age of the Zipper:
- Biggest Leotard Fails of all time (R to L Skinner, Adela; Dagmar, Fraguas; Zmeskal):
- 1976 Montreal – Adidas Stripes and Flowers for Industrial Supremacy:
- 1980 Moscow – The Golden Age of Leotards Begins:
- Maria Evgenievna Filatova (USSR)
- Yelena Davydov and Elena Mukhina (USSR), in flowers:
- Tatiana Groshkova and Olga Mostepanova (USSR) the rose leo:
- Tracee Talavera, Julianne McNamara, Diane Durham in US flowers:
- Dagmar Kersten, Maxi Gauck in GDR (East Germany for you post-cold war kids) flowers:
- Patriotic Leos, British, Romania, Japan:
- Brandy Johnson flag candy cane leo. Watch her compete in this leo here:
- Personalized Theme Leos: Parkettes Cats leotard Hope Spivey (can’t find a photo), Marta Pihan Kuleza, McKayla Maroney, Texas Dreams theme leos, Larisa Iordache’s Pikachu, Ariella Käslin butterfly.
- Hope Spivey’s CATS leotard. Inspired by the 80’s broadway musical, CATS. Watch her compete in her CATS leotard here.
- Australia, a leotard retrospective:
- Onodi Fever Dreams:
- 1996 Atlanta:
- 2000 Sydney:
- 2004 Athens : Crushed Velvet and the Age of Ponor in Black:
- An Ode to the Cut Out, Keyhole and Crushed Velvet:
- 2008 Beijing – The Pink Starfish Mafia and 2006-2008 – Transition from Sporty to SPARKLE PRINCESS:
- Era of the Throwback Homage:
- 2015 US team final – Georgia O’Keefe sparkly:
- The Most Notorious of All Time:
- Spain and Ludivine’s neck scarves.
- GAGE , dominatrix, black criss-cross, leos inspired by Svetlana Grosdova (USSR) laced bodice long sleeve in the late 1970’s? Because Nastia’s Nastia Cup leos certainly were:
- What We’ve Learned – The Rules of Leotarding:
- See through white leotards or sheer on mammary glands is not ok.
White people don’t look good in neon or gold.
- Our favorite leos of all time:
- Spencer’s favorites
Jessica’s favorites:
SUPPORT THE SHOW
- Join Club Gym Nerd here or commission your own episode.
- Buy one of our awesome shirts here.
RELATED EPISODES
- 225: 1992 Olympics Recap with Wendy Bruce (Commissioned)
- 185: 2008 Olympic All-Around Finals (Commissioned)
RELATED ARTICLES
- The Gymternet Leo Panel
- The Couch Gymnast leotard police, worlds worst leos
- NY Time Simone Biles Leotard Crystal
- NY Times Evolution of the Lowly Leotard
- GymCoach Diana’s IndieGoGo Campaign For her One stop shop for all you gymnastics needs, and wants. She’d love ideas for perks.
MORE WAYS TO LISTEN
 |
 |
Can’t wait to listen to this after work today. I always look forward to Wednesdays because of gymcastic, but today it is the one bright spot in a particularly bleak, historically depressing day.
Love this! Exactly what was needed after election night. You guys had me laughing out loud and Spencer\’s period apparatus comment….favorite thing ever. Keep up the awesomeness.
This post is exactly what I need on the day after the election. Thank you so much for providing such a positive podcast!
WASN’T HOPE SPIVEY FLOOR MUSIC TO CATS?
This is just what I needed after last nights election. Thank you for such a positive, upbeat podcast.
Whoops I posted twice, my bad, didn’t think the first went through.
Lululemon has a kids brand called ivivva! Iivivva was selling a few gym leos AND the leos had some textured silicone stuff sewn into the bottom of the leo switch made it WEDGY PROOF (supposedly)!!!! I don\’t think they\’re selling them currently but they were still selling them in June! I would\’ve bought one but I think they were pretty pricey for being pretty plain.
here is the hope spivey routine, i think you spoke of in the ep?…the music was cats the leo wasn’t (not sure never seen it) but there is the line “you threw away a national floor title”…2nd routine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o21Zl4fiU3I
I haven’t listened yet but I already love it. Love/hate how Australia has its own entry in the list. Til Peggy lidduck came our leotards were foul. Just gross. Used to cringe every major competition waiting to see what they had on. The 94 commonwealth games opera house one and the 92 Barcelona one were the standouts.
I needed this, gave me a moment of levity in this nightmare I can’t wake up from.
Re: dominatrix criss-cross/laced bodice leo – found a video of the 1976 America Cup with Korbut wearing the red version of this on YouTube at https://youtu.be/gwqI0AmJt6U – go to 16:48 . Pretty sure I saw a Soviet gymnast wear it in navy blue at a Soviet display sometime in the mid-70s too.
And the Tina Erceg leotard was surely inspired by this cool leo modelled by several Soviet gymnasts in the 1970s which has a zip AND a proper collar AND winged sleeves! Go to 8 mins in this video https://youtu.be/K9ZDShZ-U6M to see it modelled by Olga Koval (she wears it again on floor at c34:45).
This episode on leos brought back memories of when I first moved to Dynamo Gymnastics and Peggy Liddick nicknamed me the \”Red Grasshopper\” because of my solid red leo…my old gym had required leo colors…and also I had disproportionally long (and often bent) legs!
Russia 2012 team leo was one of my favorites! Your struggle with the metric system had me dying lol!!!
Laughed so hard at this one. Needed some good laughter. Thanks!
Thanks for the shoutout to Canada\’s leos – pity you didn\’t have any pictures. (It\’s really leaves, though rather than blooms. Maple leaves, for national ID.:) )
In regards to competing in just sports bras and shorts, I\’ll say I always felt like the odd one out on my college team because I liked wearing a leotard. I especially hated wearing shirts or not tight fitting shorts like some of my teammates. I always felt like the extra fabric was in the way. I think the long sleeve leos look better in competition because they highlight the arms which can get lost when watching gymnastics in a big arena.
Also I miss velvet, not crushed, but normal velvet.
Lastly, since the hosts are against it, I want to point out that I love patriotic leos. The pink and purple was just awful. In my opinion if you are representing your country your uniform should show that.