Olympic Kit Soft Reveal: Many Stars, Not That Many Stripes

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By Gavin Kentch

VENICE AIRPORT HOTEL — Race suits are in. Do I have two dozen high-quality, rights-free images of this year’s Olympic suit for American cross-country skiers to share with you? No. Is that going to stop me from cobbling together one Insta post plus two Strava embeds to show you the best views we currently have? Also no; I didn’t make it this far by using good photos for things. Read on for more.

Jessie Diggins shared the following post via a story a few hours ago; she has roughly as many Insta followers as the city of Anchorage has residents, so it feels like the secret is pretty well out at this point (but we’re still gonna talk about it, because insights).

Lauren Jortberg skied in the suit this morning (click through to the video, in the third slide):

The first comment on this post was “Those suits!! 😮‍💨😍,” from former pro skier Kelsey Phinney, so you can tell that this is news.

Gus Schumacher was also on scene; you want the fourth slide here, with video:

Of note from Schumacher’s video, in addition to the suit, are the temporary bleachers in the background (they are large, though hardly Trondheim-large); the approximately one million V-boards in the stadium; the fact that everyone, even World Cup top-30 skiers, loses not only their yellow cards but also their name bibs for the fortnight, competing instead as “ATHLETE” (John Kruk could never); and the fact that, after an extremely dry start to the winter in the Fiemme valley, it is actively snowing there today.

(As an aside, shoutout to the coach doing follow cam duties here. This is legit courseside cinematography work.)

So what do we think of the suits? They are largely as teased in this space two weeks ago, on the basis of official press images from USSS, though more nordic-y here and less GS-y. Blue is the dominant color, and stars the dominant design element. There are two red stripes on each sleeve, just below the shoulder, offsetting the stripes on the arms. The combined effect in side profile, as in this extremely high-quality screenshot from Gus’s Strava post video, is pretty sweet, with the white on the inside of the right-hand sleeve offsetting the blue on the outside of the left arm.

I also like what appears to be the fairly dynamic transition from blue to white on the lower right leg (in the Gus video). That one doesn’t really come through in the Jessie Diggins Insta embed, but there you can better see the two red stripes mirrored mid-shin as Diggins goes around a corner (top of this post).

This looks good. It also evokes to me the locus classicus relay socks from the (my goodness I am old now) breakthrough 2013 team sprint. This is always a good association for the U.S. in general, no less so in Val di Fiemme specifically. Here is Kikkan, and the socks, on that fateful day, crossing the finish line first by approximately one hour:

Honestly, I like these suits. Quite a bit. But also I left home over 48 hours ago, still have yet to be reunited with my luggage, and this morning turned my shirt inside out so that it will feel like a new shirt, so I have pretty low standards here. That said Kelsey Phinney is a good deal more put together than I am and she likes them as well — note not just the 😮‍💨 emoji in her comment but also the 😍 — so let’s go with an overall favorable review here.

Fwiw, here are the American uniforms for the last three Olympic quads:

2014 (sticking with the team sprint theme for a minute here, yes this is a much younger Jessie Diggins):

2018 (Sadie Bjornsen):

2022 (Rosie Brennan):

Reading these diachronically, you can see some confusion in 2014 as to whether they were foregrounding stripes or stars as the dominant element (also, I’m sorry, but these stripes are not good); a complete move away from stars in 2018, in favor of a whole lot of stripes; and then a much sharper delineation of stars and stripes in 2022. The Beijing suit is really just the glow-up version of Sochi; it’s so much better.

Compared to the last three Games, the kit for Milano–Cortina is retro yet sharp, understated yet stylish, starry yet also stripey. IT’s Your Vibe, indeed.

You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one not very fashionable man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American skiing. We started with nothing and now we’re at the Olympics (or at least getting close to them). You can read more about our first three years here, and donate to the Olympics fund here. Thank you for consideration, and, especially, for reading.