Female gymnasts will be allowed to wear SHORTS over their leotards and no longer face penalties for showing their bra strap in New Zealand as country becomes first to scrap 'archaic' rules

Female gymnasts in New Zealand will be allowed to wear shorts or leggings over their leotards and will no longer be penalised for showing their bra straps or having visible underwear. 

The sport's governing body, Gymnastics New Zealand (GNZ),  said the changes were made after a survey of competitive gymnasts found the rules to be 'archaic'. 

After receiving more than 200 responses, GNZ found the athletes wanted to 'feel comfortable and safe' in the sport. 

The new rules only apply to competitions governed in New Zealand, meaning that the old rules - governed by International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) - will still apply to competition gymnasts.

'We found the regulations around underwear were unclear and unevenly applied and, to be honest, a little archaic,' GNZ chief executive Andrea Nelson said in a statement.

Female gymnasts in New Zealand will finally be allowed to wear shorts or leggings over their leotards and will no longer be penalised for showing their bra straps or having visible underwear

The sport's governing body, Gymnastics New Zealand (GNZ), said the changes were made after a survey of competitive gymnasts found the rules to be 'archaic'

'We're just making sure that wherever you are in the sport, you have the choice. So no one feels uncomfortable or excluded.'

Those require women to wear 'correct sportive non transparent leotard or unitard ... which must be of elegant design'.

Female athletes can have anywhere from 0.30 to 1.00 points deducted from their final score for attire violations during individual or teams routines.

Athletes have previously voiced concerns over gymnastic attire, with the German team choosing to wear full-body suits at the Tokyo Olympics as a stand against the sexualisation of women in sport. 

Jennifer Pinches, a British gymnast who represented Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics, said that the rules on attire were 'perpetuating extremely harmful ideals'. 

Speaking in 2021, she added: 'It seems ridiculous that we're policing particularly women's bodies to this extent Why hasn't this been updated?' 

Sarah Voss, one of the first German gymnasts to wear a unitard, said in 2023: 'It's in this very vulnerable time [puberty] that young girls often decide to quit gymnastics because they don't feel very good in their body any more.' 

In February, a study by the New Zealand-based Massey University found that uniform design could contribute to increased anxiety among female athletes when it came to concerns related to their body image, visibility of menstrual blood and visibility of underwear.

Another 2021 study by Sport New Zealand on female teenagers revealed many were leaving sport and active recreation because they felt uncomfortable in some kit.

Ms Nelson said that relaxing some of the regulations around attire might keep girls in sport and would at least bring the rules for females in line with those of males, who have long been able to wear shorts or trousers.

Germany's Sarah Voss was one of the first female gymnasts to wear long trousers to make a statement against sexual violence in sports, doing so at the 2021 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships

'Gymnastics is a tough enough sport without having to stress about incurring a deduction because a judge can see your bra strap,' Nelson added.

However, she did also point out that not all female athletes are critical of the uniforms, telling Radio New Zealand: 'We surveyed our competitors across all of the gymnastic disciplines and what we found was that most of the girls actually love wearing a leotard,'

'But there are some gymnasts who just don't feel comfortable in that attire.'

The study found that nearly 40 per cent of New Zealand's sporting bodies felt decisions about female sport uniform designs should predominantly lie with the athletes.