There wasn’t much celebration for Canadian bobsledders Chris Spring and Jesse Lumsden on Monday (17). The pair placed seventh in the doubles final at the Winter Games and finished without a medal. “We made some mistakes and this is the Olympics where everyone is doing their best,” Lumsden said in an interview with Canadian television’s CBC.

The participation of his partner, the chubby Chris Spring, occurred two days after the athlete was at the center of an unusual affair. Last Saturday, Spring wore the uniform and it immediately tore, all the way to his stomach.

In a good mood, the athlete posted on Twitter: “I tried on my uniform before tomorrow’s test [domingo] and it’s a little… tight,” joked Spring, who then used the hashtag “powerbelly.” He later deleted the post.

Spring’s uniform problem brought to mind another curious incident in Sochi. Last week, Russian skater Olga Graf, excited about winning the gold medal in the 3,000 meters, decided to relieve heat and unzip the tight clothes. She forgot, however, that she had nothing on under her clothes and almost let a little more show than she wanted. When he noticed the tight skirt, he zipped it up.

Good at skiing, bad at jeans

The uniforms in Sochi also generated another interesting aspect, but that of skiing. With their tight clothing, one particular feature of the athletes was remarkable at the Winter Games: their big buttocks.

“Yes, I have a huge butt,” confessed Canadian Jan Hudec, in an interview with The New York Timeslast week. Chemmy Alcott is another person who spoke to the newspaper about this different aspect of skiing. “We have a butt, yes. I spent 28 years squatting in that position [própria do esqui]and I’m proud of it. But it would be a lot easier to be thin, because I have to train hard to get those muscles,” she explained.

In addition to the typical ski squats, they also need a solid base in the legs and glutes to support, for example, the quick jumps and turns of downhill racing. “It’s not so much a question of being tall, but rather of having muscle mass,” explained Tony Beretzki, the Austrian coach who leads the U.S. team.

But skiers don’t just find advantages in their unique bodies. “It’s hard to find jeans that fit,” said American Travis Ganong. “They tend to rip. We have to buy stretch jeans,” added Steven Nyman, also from the United States.

The difficulty is such that when some skiers do manage to find a pair that fits their body, they don’t save money. “I buy the same pair of jeans in four different colors every year. You have to find the ones that work and buy a bunch of them,” Alcott said. The New York Times.