Team GB have unveiled the formal wear for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The suits are modelled by super heavyweight boxer Joe Joyce and gymnast Nile Wilson to highlight the diversity of sizes, with 30-year-old Joe weighing in at 17 stone and a huge 6ft 5ins tall compared to 20-year-old Nile, who is just 5ft 4in and nine-and-a-half stone.
Accrington-based Simon Jersey designed the suits for 350 athletes – Team GB’s largest ever away team – in a process which has lasted 23 months. The team outfits will see 22,500 buttons used along with 4,854 metres – 3.01 miles – of material.
But the outfits have to cater for a wide range of people ranging from 14-60 in age – with the smallest jacket measuring 26 inches and the largest at 52 inches. Simon Jersey staff travelled 3,100 miles on ‘sizing sessions’ to trial the suit on officials and athletes from nine disciplines.
A spokesman for the company said: “We’re incredibly proud to be working with Team GB. The athletes are amazingly diverse in terms of body shapes, with each sport requiring strength in different areas of the body.
“However, designing uniforms that look great on people of all shapes and sizes is what we do every day, so creating the suits for Team GB has definitely been more of an honour than a challenge. The feedback from athletes who’ve seen the suits has been fantastic and we can’t wait to see them all wearing it at their formal events”
