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          Uni Watch's Friday Flashback: Higher, faster, stronger Olympic uniforms

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          Uni Watch: When Michael Johnson wore gold spikes and Cathy Freeman wore a swift suit (1:14)

          Paul Lukas of Uni Watch looks at the top branding moments in the Olympics. (1:14)

          • Paul LukasAug 20, 2016, 12:00 AM
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            • Sports journalism's foremost uniform reporter
            • ESPN.com columnist since 2004
            • Also blogs at uni-watch.com
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          Fun fact: Athletes at the ancient Olympic Games -- the ones held in Greece over a millennium ago -- competed in the nude because part of the point of the games was to celebrate the human form.

          Sounds very, uh, naturalistic. But at some point people figured out that they'd never score a sneaker contract or an endorsement deal by competing in their birthday suits, so Olympic uniforms were born.

          And that has always posed a problem, at least from a design standpoint. Most Olympic athletes will only compete over the course of a few days (or, in some cases, a few minutes), so there's no time for small details or subtle nuances to sink in the way they would over the course of a long sports season. That's why the trend at recent Olympiads has been toward bold designs that make a strong visual impact. Get in, boom, get out.

          Look back a bit further in Olympic history, however, and you'll see all sorts of uni-related anomalies and curiosities. With that in mind, here are a dozen key moments in Olympic apparel history, some of which may surprise you.

          1. USA basketball team photo, 2008. Sometimes a bellwether uniform moment takes place off the field -- or in this case, off the court. No single episode has captured the modern commingling of the Olympics, uniforms and corporate influence like the 2008 American basketball squad's team portrait, where Team USA's outfitter, Nike, arranged things so coach Mike Krzyzewski just happened to be positioned with his foot obscuring Dwight Howard's Adidas sneakers. Howard appeared to be getting a bit of revenge by having his hand over the Nike logo on his shorts. Hey, it's all part of the Olympic movement, right?

          The incident was echoed in the photo of this year's Team USA roster:

          2. Michael Johnson, 1996. These days we take it for granted that most of the top athletes will have flashy footwear. But that wasn't the case 20 years, ago, when American sprinter Michael Johnson broke out a set of custom-designed Nike spikes rendered in glittering gold for the Summer Games in Atlanta. The gold extended beyond his shoes, as Johnson won the 200- and 400-meter races.

          3. Abebe Bikila, 1960, and Zola Budd, 1984. Then again, who needs a flashy shoe design when you're not wearing shoes to begin with? Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian long-distance runner, won the gold in the marathon at the 1960 Games in Rome while running barefoot. Two dozen years later in Los Angeles, South African runner Zola Budd went barefoot while famously colliding with American rival Mary Decker in the 3,000 meters.

          4. Cathy Freeman, 2000. For generations, the traditional thinking about performance sportswear was that athletes got faster and faster as they wore less and less. But Nike turned that logic on its head at the 2000 Games in Sydney, where Australian sprinter Cathy Freeman wore more. While her competitors competed in the standard tank tops and shorts, Freeman donned an aerodynamically designed full-body unitard -- a "swift suit," Nike called it. It may have been counterintuitive, but it worked: Freeman won the gold in the 400 meters.

          5. The Australian women's basketball team, 1996-2008. Freeman isn't the only female Australian athlete who has raised eyebrows with a one-piece uniform. The Aussie women's hoops team wore an unconventional unitard format at four Olympiads (Atlanta in 1996, Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004, and Beijing in 2008), winning a bronze and three silvers over that span. Despite that record of success, the team reverted to the more traditional tank top and shorts in 2012.

          6. Ibtihaj Muhammad, 2016. We had to include one entry from Rio, and it was an easy choice. Ibtihaj Muhammad, an American fencer, has become the first Team USA Olympian to compete while wearing a hijab -- which makes her a good symbol of America's diversity, especially at a time when Muslim-Americans have become something of a political football. (Footnote: She won the bronze.)

          7. Martin Sheridan, 1908. It seems safe to say that it's been a long time since any athletes kept sock garters in their lockers. For one thing, modern stretch fabrics keep socks from falling down. For another, sock garters look, you know, seriously dorky. But that didn't keep Martin Sheridan from wearing them while winning the gold medal in the discus throw at the 1908 Games in London.

          8. Kerri Strug, 1996. No protective or rehabilitative gear worn by any athlete has ever seemed as significant as the ankle wraps worn by American gymnast Kerri Strug at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. After spraining her ankle on her first vault attempt, she injured it further while sticking the landing for her second vault, which helped clinch the gold for Team USA. With Strug's injured leg wrapped and secured in a protective boot, coach Béla Károlyi carried her to the medal podium, where she stood on one leg alongside her teammates, the bandages and boot serving as a potent symbol of her Olympic spirit.

          9. Muhammad Ali, 1960. As the world says goodbye to Muhammad Ali this year, it's worth remembering that he looked very sharp indeed at the 1960 Olympics in Rome (when he was still known as Cassius Clay), winning the light-heavyweight gold medal while wearing "USA" trunks and a sash-style tank top. If you check out the old photos, his opponents look positively slovenly by comparison. Even as a teenager, The Greatest had his opposing fighters outclassed before they even stepped into the ring. (As an aside, Ali kept wearing those "USA" trunks for several of his early professional bouts.)

          10. Vasily Alekseyev, 1972-1980. There are lots of Olympic sports where the athletes show a lot of skin -- synchronized diving and beach volleyball, for example, are often done in tiny swimsuits. But never has a uniform seemed skimpier than when the great Soviet weightlifter Vasily Alekseyev strapped on his singlet, which looked like it was designed for a much narrower man.

          11. The Norwegian curling team, 2010. We've been focusing on the Summer Olympics here, because the 2016 Summer Games are currently taking place in Rio, but it's worth dipping into the Winter Games to take a look at the Norwegian curling team's pants. Not only did the pants cause a sensation at the 2010 Vancouver Games, but they also garnered as much publicity for their manufacturer, Loudmouth Golf, as they did for the Norwegians (who won the silver medal while sporting the outlandish designs, by the way). By the time of the next Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, the Norwegians had inked an endorsement deal with Loudmouth and garish pants had become popular at amateur curling rinks around the world. Love 'em or hate 'em, the pants are a textbook case of modern sports apparel branding.

          12. Tommie Smith and John Carlos, 1968. No discussion of Olympic attire would be complete without a mention of the black gloves worn on the medal podium by American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who won the gold and bronze, respectively, in the 200 meters at the 1968 Games in Mexico City. As they stood on the podium and "The Star-Spangled Banner" began to play, they raised their black-gloved fists in what was widely interpreted as a black power gesture (although Smith later said in his autobiography that it was actually a "human rights salute"). In addition, Smith, Carlos, and silver medalist Peter Norman from Australia all wore Olympic Project for Human Rights badges on their track jackets during the medal ceremony.

          Paul Lukas stubbornly wears plain black pants while curling but appreciates how the Loudmouth pants have helped to popularize the sport. If you like how this retrospective turned out, you'll probably like Lukas' Uni Watch Blog, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Want to learn about his Uni Watch Membership Program, be added to his mailing list so you'll always know when a new column has been posted or just ask him a question? Contact him here.