Figure skating is a sport of grace, precision, and artistry. However, sometimes things go awry, and the athletes find themselves battling not only their competitors but also their own costumes. Wardrobe malfunctions in figure skating are more common than one might think, given the demanding routines involving jumps, spins, twists, and lifts.
As long as skaters have performed in costumes, those costumes have betrayed them. It’s not hard to see why, given that they spend their routines jumping, spinning, twisting, bending, stretching, tossing, and/or being tossed.
Wardrobe malfunctions happen so often in competition that, according to a 2014 New York Times piece, there is generally a costume repair team at the ready in case a skater’s outfit requires emergency mending.
The French Fiasco: Papadakis and Cizeron's Olympic Ordeal
In Graphics: Gabriella Papadakis Ice Skating Wardrobe Malfunction
The French ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron made headlines at the Winter Olympics, but not for the reasons they would have hoped. During Sunday night’s NBC broadcast, French ice dancers Guillaume Cizeron and Gabriella Papadakis were halfway through their short program when Papadakis’ halter top came undone, briefly baring her breast to the world. A wardrobe malfunction led to Papadakis being overexposed on the ice.
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“I felt it right away and I prayed,” Papadakis said after the top of her costume became unhooked and slipped. “It was pretty distracting, kind of my worst nightmare happening at the Olympics. I told myself: ‘I don’t have a choice. I have to keep going.’ And that’s what we did. I think we can be proud of ourselves being able to deliver a great performance with that happening.”
The US broadcaster NBC, mindful of the furore when Janet Jackson was accidentally exposed at the Super Bowl half-time show in 2004 and a water polo player suffered similar misfortune at London 2012, issued a statement explaining “once a competitor’s brief wardrobe issue became evident, we purposely used wider camera shots and carefully selected replays to keep the issue obscured”.
Despite the French couple's high score - 81.93 - it's unclear whether they were penalized for the wardrobe issue. USA Today reports that losing any part of a costume, even a hair clip, can lead to a one-point deduction.
Papadakis left the rink on the verge of tears and avoided reporters following the pair's performance.
"It's a little bit frustrating to know that it's not because of something that we did," Cizeron said. "It's just a costume issue, something as stupid as that, so it's a little bit disappointing."
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In PyeongChang, the duo missed out on gold by the slimmest of margins, doomed by their headline-grabbing gaffe.
The last on the ice to perform their free dance, Papadakis and Cizeron left no doubt this time around in obliterating the rest of the field.
The duo captured gold in team ice dance in dominant fashion, breaking their own world record in the process.
“I think we don’t believe it yet. Honestly, it feels completely unreal,” Papadakis told Eurosport after the performance, per News.com.au. “We have been waiting for this. This is the medal that we wanted.
Other Instances of Costume Calamity
Papadakis and Cizeron are far from being alone in the history of costume disasters at the Winter Olympics. Indeed, their misfortune isn’t even the first one on the ice in the Pyeongchang Games.
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Yura Min: South Korea's Close Call
On day three the South Korean skater Yura Min’s costume came undone at the back. She later tweeted: “Despite the wardrobe malfunction, I had an amazing time competing in my home country! I promise to sew myself in for the individual event.” She also posted a video clip of her joking about the way she had covered herself up, with the single word: “Oopsie.”
Henrik Harlaut: Pants Down in Sochi
It isn’t just in the ice rink that athletes experience problems. At Sochi in 2014 Henrik Harlaut’s trousers headed south during qualification for the men’s freestyle skiing slopestyle.
Fortunately his underwear held up - with the Swede claiming he was used to performing like that anyway: “I don’t find it difficult. I’ve skied like that the past 10 years. It’s been my style for a while. I’m pretty comfortable like that.”
Christopher Spring: The "Powerbelly" Reveal
It was also a costume mishap at Sochi that introduced the Winter Olympics to the phrase “Powerbelly”. The Canadian bobsledder Christopher Spring found the uniform he had been given to compete in was no match for his tummy, leading him to tweet: “I tried on my race suit ahead of tomorrow’s 2man Olympic race and its a little … er tight. #powerbelly”
Olga Graf: A Zipper Snafu
Having just secured bronze in the 3,000m, Graf absent-mindedly unzipped the front of her skating suit, having forgotten that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
As the realisation dawned, she clutched the suit closed and seemed to apologise to the crowd. “I totally forgot, we have very good suits and they are very tight. You just want to breathe and you want to take off your suit,” she said afterwards.
Nobunari Oda: Shoelace Disaster
Even the smallest of costume mishaps can severely impede an athlete. At Vancouver 2010, Japanese figure skater Nobunari Oda became the victim of his shoelaces. Halfway through his free skate they broke and came undone. He approached the judges and was given three minutes to re-prepare and continue but the damage had been done.
“It came untied, it’s my fault, I feel guilty for myself for doing this. I will try to make sure it does not happen again,” he said afterwards. He had been in fourth place going into the routine but slipped to seventh.
Expert Opinions on Costume Design
The talk was animated Tuesday in the world of figure skating costume design when USA TODAY Sports reached out to known designers.
Pearsall attributed the malfunctions to possible inexperience by the costume design makers while noting that both garments were halter tops that require specific closures.
“The only thing that keeps that halter dress up is that neck,’’ she said. “Those hooks, whatever that closure is at the back of the neck, is the only thing that keeps the entire dress up.
“Now, in a case like that, when I make a halter dress, you must have a redundant system of closures back there. I mean, you just do. I usually do buttons and loops, and then I do hooks and bars, and then I do like little hooks and other small bars. but you must have a redundant system. And if you don’t, things like this will happen.
Del Arbour, a costume designer who has worked with many Olympians, expressed no need for an investigation to determine what went wrong with the costume design.
“I think it’s a situation where they don’t check and make sure that it’s not going to happen,’’ Arbour said. “It was very upsetting.’’
But Suzy Hubbs, an experienced costume designer in Colorado Springs, Colo., suggested the nature of the sport creates risk for the so-called malfunctions.
Said Hubbs: “I know frequently after competition, a skater will come back and say, ‘Hey, this snap popped off. Can you fix it?' Or, ‘This tore a little bit. Can you fix it?’
“There are tremendous forces acting on those fabrics and acting on those skaters’ bodies. That’s just a lot of force. There’s no easy answer.’’
The Show Must Go On
“A malfunction can leave a competitor embarrassed, exposed and even in danger,” New York Times writer Jeré Longman observed in 2014. But costumes are going to slip. It has always happened and it always will.
Skaters can’t avoid the issue-they can only hope to deal with it as gracefully as Cizeron and Papadakis did.
After adjusting her top, Papadakis recovered and finished her routine, and the two ultimately finished in second place after the short program, just behind Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.