The Olympic rings are blue, red, gold, green and black, representing at least one color found on every country’s flag. The uniforms at these Games are also colorful and symbolic in a different way. The Olympic Zone takes a look at the good, the bad and the ugly of Olympic fashion.
Wearing pants right out of golf’s “Caddyshack” era, the Norwegian curling team is, once again, making a statement at the winter Olympics.
Four years ago in Vancouver, they first showed their national pride in delightfully hideous fashion after deciding the uniforms they were issued were too dull.
“We tried to find some colorful pants online and bought them really and then started playing in them and end up being point of no return.”
Norway won silver in Vancouver, and quickly found that being the guys in the bad pants has its benefits.
“I think they took like 200 pictures, a couple girls asked me to marry them, I think ‘this is big isn’t it? I can do this, you know,’” one of the Norwegian curlers said.
Olympic fashion, like all fashion, has been hit or miss over the years. Some wondered about team USA’s, quote, “ugly sweaters” at the opening ceremony. It was a different direction from the United States’ long history of cowboy hats and denim.
At least the American team was dressed for the season. Bermuda wore shorts and knee highs. The Cayman Islands took it a step further by wearing flip-flops. Tonga went with the palm tree theme. And the Germans went with every color in the rainbow.
Perhaps the best uniform at these Sochi games belongs to Mexico’s lone representative, skier Hubertus von Hohenlohe going full mariachi as he tackles the slopes.
The intensity of the daredevil skeleton sliders is reflected on their helmets: haunting faces, angry birds and brains.
Sochi’s loudest national contingent, in terms of color, is the Netherlands. The Dutch bright orange covers every fan, every athlete and even every team bicycle in the village.