By @mmmaiko

Olympic games are one of the few acceptable venues for jingoism, and I expect the national kits to capslock holler “[insert country name] REPRESENT, MOTHERFUCKERS!!” Even if you’re, say, the Seychelles and expect to go home utterly empty-handed, you should still swagger into the opening ceremony as if you’d rape, pillage and enslave like the Dothraki. Stella McCartney shares my jingoistic raping and pillaging concept for the Olympics except she turns the violence toward the flag of Great Britain. While paying lip service that the Union Jack is “one of the most beautiful flags in the world,” McCartney exsanguinated and dismembered her flag, removing the red and cutting up the rest into a pale blue ghost of a proud, iconic symbol.

My initial reaction to the dismembered Union Jack frankensteined into a cycling kit? “Why is Sir Chris Hoy in a US Postal kit?!?” The GB cycling kit is mostly navy with red trim on the collar. On the chest, it displays, off-center, one quarter of the Union Jack rendered in blues. The quartered Union Jack panel looks unfortunately like an abstract USPS eagle tucking its head into Sir Chris’s armpit. (What’s up with cycling and eagles in bodily crevices?) Maybe Johan Bruyneel was right that I’m one of those obsessed pseudo-personality haters with too much time and I’m seeing US Postal everywhere. US POSTAL REPRESENT, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Other than looking like a kit for a defunct pro cycling team, the Olympics kit lacks any sort of flair. I’m not a fan of the regular British Cycling kit, which looks like a love child of an abstracted Union Jack and the Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 album cover, but at least it embodies a sense of dynamism and motion. There’s something stolid and immobile about the Olympics kit, coupled with the wonky, off-center placement of the flag quarter, doesn’t quite scream epic panache legendary. The design would make perfect packaging for sleeping pills. That is, for off-brand sleeping pills that make you just sleep, instead of Ambien, which makes you sleep eat and have crazy sleep sex endorsed by Tiger Woods. 

Remember Brad Wiggins’ disastrous 2009 Time Trial World Championship ride? Following his 4th place at the Tour, Wiggins rolled out of the start house with bombast in a loud red-and-blue British Cycling skinsuit and a Union Jack disc wheel. He was so Union Jacked up it was impossible to mistake whence he came. Then, Wiggins had a fatal mechanical, chucking aside his bike in a mild hissy fit. Imagine that scene in the 2012 Great Britain Olympic kit. The swagger of the roll-out and the ridiculousness of the half-assed hissy bike toss would be dampened by the soporific kit. With pressure mounting on both Wiggins and Cavendish for the Tour and the Olympics, what a shame it would be to have their Union Jack-off theatrics outfitted like off-brand sleeping pills rather than Union Jack clowns!

Sir Chris Hoy says Great Britain Olympics kit is “fantastic” and “classic”, an endorsement that doesn’t sound like he’s crap-his-shorts stoked, utilizing the kit’s state-of-the-art “moisture management fibres” or “heat and ventilation zones” boasted by Adidas. I’m sure British Cycling will pillage the Olympics for its medals, but alas, will we be able to tell instantly from what nation he/she hails when arms are raised in victory?