Related video: U.S. gymnastics team boarded a flight to TokyoThe team’s outfits looked similar to the others in the room as the arena lights gleamed off crystals crisscrossing their chests and down their crimson and white sleeves.But the German gymnastics team’s new Olympic suits didn’t stop at their hips.For decades, female gymnasts have worn bikini-cut leotards. In qualifying on Sunday, however, the German team instead wore unitards that stretched to their ankles, intending to push back against sexualization of women in gymnastics.The Tokyo Olympics are the first Summer Games since Larry Nassar, a former USA Gymnastics national team doctor, was sent to prison for 176 years for sexually abusing hundreds of gymnasts, including some of the sport's greatest stars. At his sentencing, athletes — some of them Olympians — described how the sport’s culture allowed for abuse and objectification of young women and girls.Male gymnasts wear comparatively body-covering clothes: singlets, with loose shorts for their floor exercise and vault, and long pants on bar and pommel horse routines.The German team first wore unitards at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in April.Sarah Voss, a 21-year-old German, said they weren't sure they would decide to wear them again during Olympic competition until they got together before the meet.“We sat together today and said, OK, we want to have a big competition," Voss said. “We want to feel amazing, we want to show everyone that we look amazing." Their wardrobe revolution, while widely championed, has not so far started a trend. Leotards that leave the legs bare were worn by every other female gymnast during qualifying at the Tokyo Games.At 4-foot-8, American superstar Simone Biles said in June that she prefers leotards because they lengthen the leg and make her appear taller.“But I stand with their decision to wear whatever they please and whatever makes them feel comfortable,” Biles said. “So if anyone out there wants to wear a unitard or leotard, it’s totally up to you.”Matt Cowan, the chief commercial officer for GK Elite, the U.S.’ premier leotard manufacturer, said most requests for unitards now come from countries the require modesty for cultural and religious reasons. They have otherwise seen no rush toward catsuits.“Would we do it? Absolutely. We have the capabilities of designing it and doing it, and we have done it," Cowan said. "But from a consumer demand perspective, we are not there yet.”Gymnastics is often viewed as a sport best performed by very young women and girls. Biles, at 24, often jokes about being old; she recently called herself a grandma on social media.But other nations have defied that emphasis on youth, including the Germans: Elisabeth Seitz is 27, Kim Bui is 32, Pauline Schafer is 24, and Voss is 21. Their average age of 26. Voss said that gymnastics customs should leave room for female bodies as they age and change.Their outfits comply with the wardrobe rules of the International Gymnastics Federation. But that doesn’t mean female athletes are generally free to cover their bodies as they choose.Just days before the Games began, the Norwegian women’s beach handball team refused to play in bikini bottoms during European tournaments, opting instead for skin-tight shorts. For that, they received a fine for violating a wardrobe requirement.But at gymnastics qualifying Sunday, the announcer over the loudspeaker called the outfits “very nice indeed." The German team did not qualify for finals, but the announcer pondered if their team debut on the Olympic stage might increase unitards' popularity.

Related video: U.S. gymnastics team boarded a flight to Tokyo

The team’s outfits looked similar to the others in the room as the arena lights gleamed off crystals crisscrossing their chests and down their crimson and white sleeves.

But the German gymnastics team’s new Olympic suits didn’t stop at their hips.

For decades, female gymnasts have worn bikini-cut leotards. In qualifying on Sunday, however, the German team instead wore unitards that stretched to their ankles, intending to push back against sexualization of women in gymnastics.

AP Photo/Ashley Landis

The Tokyo Olympics are the first Summer Games since Larry Nassar, a former USA Gymnastics national team doctor, was sent to prison for 176 years for sexually abusing hundreds of gymnasts, including some of the sport's greatest stars. At his sentencing, athletes — some of them Olympians — described how the sport’s culture allowed for abuse and objectification of young women and girls.

Male gymnasts wear comparatively body-covering clothes: singlets, with loose shorts for their floor exercise and vault, and long pants on bar and pommel horse routines.

The German team first wore unitards at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in April.

Sarah Voss, a 21-year-old German, said they weren't sure they would decide to wear them again during Olympic competition until they got together before the meet.

“We sat together today and said, OK, we want to have a big competition," Voss said. “We want to feel amazing, we want to show everyone that we look amazing."

AP Photo/Gregory Bull

Their wardrobe revolution, while widely championed, has not so far started a trend. Leotards that leave the legs bare were worn by every other female gymnast during qualifying at the Tokyo Games.

At 4-foot-8, American superstar Simone Biles said in June that she prefers leotards because they lengthen the leg and make her appear taller.

“But I stand with their decision to wear whatever they please and whatever makes them feel comfortable,” Biles said. “So if anyone out there wants to wear a unitard or leotard, it’s totally up to you.”

Matt Cowan, the chief commercial officer for GK Elite, the U.S.’ premier leotard manufacturer, said most requests for unitards now come from countries the require modesty for cultural and religious reasons. They have otherwise seen no rush toward catsuits.

“Would we do it? Absolutely. We have the capabilities of designing it and doing it, and we have done it," Cowan said. "But from a consumer demand perspective, we are not there yet.”

LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images

Gymnastics is often viewed as a sport best performed by very young women and girls. Biles, at 24, often jokes about being old; she recently called herself a grandma on social media.

But other nations have defied that emphasis on youth, including the Germans: Elisabeth Seitz is 27, Kim Bui is 32, Pauline Schafer is 24, and Voss is 21. Their average age of 26. Voss said that gymnastics customs should leave room for female bodies as they age and change.

Their outfits comply with the wardrobe rules of the International Gymnastics Federation. But that doesn’t mean female athletes are generally free to cover their bodies as they choose.

Just days before the Games began, the Norwegian women’s beach handball team refused to play in bikini bottoms during European tournaments, opting instead for skin-tight shorts. For that, they received a fine for violating a wardrobe requirement.

But at gymnastics qualifying Sunday, the announcer over the loudspeaker called the outfits “very nice indeed." The German team did not qualify for finals, but the announcer pondered if their team debut on the Olympic stage might increase unitards' popularity.

Related video above: Olympic surfing bittersweet for Native HawaiiansJohanne Defay of France was devastated when the mega sponsor Roxy dropped her right before she became a pro surfer in 2014, shattering her confidence and threatening her career altogether."They were just like 'Oh, you don't look this way, you know, for, like, pictures," Defay said. "And I just felt like I was never doing enough or I wasn't fitting in, in the way that they wanted for their brand."Now, Defay is headed to the Tokyo Olympics for surfing's debut at the Summer Games, buoyed by an upset win against reigning world champion Carissa Moore at the high-intensity Surf Ranch competition last month.Though there's much excitement and renewed enthusiasm for the women's game, years of objectification, pay disparities and an opportunity gap have taken their toll. Industry leaders from the professional World Surf League and the developmental USA Surfing say they're committed to righting the wrongs that have long held female surfers back in the male-dominated sport.The mental, financial and logistical roadblocks for women in surfing date back centuries.Hawaiians who invented the sport treated it as an egalitarian national pastime that all genders, ages and social classes enjoyed, according to Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a Hawaii surfing historian. But Christian missionaries who arrived on the island tried to ban surfing in large part because of nudity — surfing naked was common at the sports' inception. Though locals largely defied the colonizers, female surfers saw their ranks shrink disproportionately."When it comes to controlling nudity, it's about controlling female bodies," said Walker, also a BYU-Hawaii history professor.Even for Moore, the child prodigy who could beat the boys before growing up to be — at 18 years old — the youngest World Surf League champion in history, said she's also struggled with her body image. Moore is 28 now and has spoken openly about starving herself as a teenager, only to binge eat later, and once even trying to force herself to throw up."Everyone had this idea of what a surfer girl should look like. And there were a lot of 'hot lists' or the 'cutest surfer girl list,'" Moore said. "I never made them, but then you see who actually made them and you feel like: 'Oh, I guess, like, that's what I should look like.'"Modern day professional surfing in a previous iteration had a decentralized approach that left brand sponsors in charge of many of the competition logistics, which would vary widely from one event to another, said Greg Cruse, USA Surfing CEO. And though it wasn't an official rule or standard, there was clearly a preference for the men's game. Surfing schedules are determined in the morning based on what the ocean waves are like, and it was no secret that the boys' and men's competitions would be given the best surf conditions, usually in the morning. Female surfers took the scraps, if they were invited at all."There'd be the event directors and they would kind of schedule things the way they wanted to schedule and there would be bias from the outdated patriarchy. It's changed immensely," Cruse said. "It took a while for the women to complain about it."A turning point came in 2013, when new ownership took over the professional league and the rebranded WSL began to prioritize standardizing the competitions and rebuilding the women's events, said Jessi Miley-Dyer, a retired pro surfer who now runs the WSL's competition as senior vice president.In 2019, the WSL as the leaders of the $10 billion surfing industry also began offering equal prize money for all its events, making it one of the few professional sports leagues to achieve pay equity."It was an important statement to make around the value of our athletes. More than anything, it speaks to the emphasis on women's surfing. We believe men and women are valued the same," Miley-Dyer said. "It's the right thing to do."The announcement was emotional for many, including Miley-Dyer. Back in 2006 when she won a pro event, she earned just $10,000 — a third of what the top male surfer took home."I cried because it means so much," Miley-Dyer said. "I had also retired, so it wasn't something for me, but it felt something to me and so many people like me."Next year will be the first time the WSL will include its women surfers at the famous Pipe Masters competition, allowing them the chance to ride the Banzai Pipeline in Oahu, Hawaii, considered by many the best waves in the world.The WSL has also committed to hosting the same number of events and in the same locations for both the men and women, though the competition at the highest level today still has twice as many male competitor spots — 36 — compared to the women's game.In terms of skill and experience, the damage caused by decades of sexism has not yet been fully reversed.It used to be that girls could begin competitive surfing training at about 11 years old while boys began as early as 4, Cruse said, adding that USA Surfing has closed this experience gap.And surfboard makers, like many male leaders in the sport, used to believe that girls and women weren't strong enough to paddle or ride powerfully enough to pull off airs, or aerial maneuvers, so they were given bigger surfboards that are physically easier to ride, but limited their ability to progress into more explosive moves.So while airs have for years become the gold standard in the men's competition, it is rarely done by the top female surfers today. Moore, the U.S. surfer to beat at the Olympics, is the first woman to land an air during competition, a milestone achieved just recently but has no doubt electrified the women's game and its future."They started demanding getting the same type of equipment that allows you to generate more speed and turn sharper and harder," Cruse said. "Right now, there's a group of girls coming up. The girls under 16 are better at airs than any of the women in the WSL. They already have the air game and it's next level and there's going to be a changing of the guard."For Defay, she persevered during her first year without corporate backing. She remembers feeling humiliated hearing others take for granted their private car services arranged by their sponsors after Defay arrived on a two-hour bus ride in order to save money.She's thankful fellow pro surfer Jeremy Flores helped sponsor her "insane" rookie season, as a nine-month season can cost as much as $80,000 in travel costs alone.Now, they're equals, teammates in Japan on the French Olympic surfing team.The 27-year-old Defay's journey to the pros has made her hungrier than ever to prove her talents and worth at the world's most elite sporting event. And she'll do it with the body she has learned to appreciate, regardless of how any sponsor may have judged her before.Though Roxy didn't respond to requests for comment on Defay's past sponsorship deal, the surfer declares this:"I like my shoulders now and my butt," Defay said with a smirk. "It's just what it is and what makes me surf this way, so I try to celebrate it."