Why do Team USA gymnasts wear different color leotards in the same event?

WASHINGTON — Now that the team final has wrapped up, when the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team takes the floor for their individual routines in Paris, they may not all be wearing the same uniform. 

While the team events require each country's athletes to wear a uniform leotard, individual events allow more flexibility. 

It's an individual choice

Olympic gold medalist Laurie Hernandez, who's providing commentary for NBC, explained during Thursday's all-around final that the individual events allow some extra freedom for the athletes.

While Suni Lee competed in a red and blue leotard, Simone Biles chose a deep blue with black accents. 

Both uniforms were covered in rhinestones that sparkled under the lights of the arena. 

"For individual event finals, each gymnast technically gets to pick out the leotard they want to wear," Hernandez explained on the live broadcast. "So you'll see even through both Suni and Simone are representing Team USA tonight, they'll be wearing different colored leotards." 

The Team USA uniforms for the Paris Olympics are made by GK Elite, a brand of Elite Sportswear, L.P. The company has been a partner for Team USA since 1989. 

"We are extremely pleased to continue our longstanding relationship with GK Elite," USA Gymnastics Chief Operating Officer Lauryn Turner said in a statement "Their experience designing and outfitting our National Team athletes, and their work with the grass roots community, is unrivaled. For over three decades, GK Elite has supported our athletes, and we look forward to collaborating with them through the current quadrennium."

Who is on the women's Olympic gymnastics team?

Representing Team USA are Simone Biles, Sunisa "Suni" Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera. 

Longer unitards for some teams

For decades, female gymnasts have typically worn bikini-cut leotards. But in the Tokyo Games, the German gymnastics team instead wore unitards that stretched to their ankles, intending to push back against sexualization of women in gymnastics.

The Tokyo Olympics were 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.