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Nobody really wants to believe that the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which have been postponed by a year due to the pandemic, will really take place this summer (you can find out the current state of affairs here);

The German Sports Association spreads confidence - and has now presented the new Olympic collection for Team D in a mixture of live stream and prepared video clips.

Gymnast Marcel Nguyen and rower Oliver Zeidler

Source: Adidas

And that's a big surprise. In the positive! It's like this: German Olympians look back on a long, long history of more or less pitiful outfit creations: from the staid boy scout costume (Seoul 1988) to Greige Mania (Athens 2004) and the pink-light blue gender GAU (London 2012) to the somewhat unmotivated silver-gray gymnastics club look (Rio 2016). The German bad-taste parties in the big sports stadiums around the world had almost cult status, every four years the question was raised anew: What look would Germany use to present itself as a nation of style deniers ?! Usually the cliché image was cemented at the extreme ends of the color spectrum: mouse gray or bright neon, there was nothing in between.

And now this: The collection for Tokyo 2021 looks really

cool

- it may almost not come out of the lips or the keyboard -

cool

!

Yes, you read that right;

For a change, the looks that Adidas has made from partially recycled marine plastic don't make the athletes look like Alman memes made flesh.

The handball players Steffen Weinhold and Patrick Wiencek

Source: Team Germany / adidas

BMX rider Lara Lessmann and hockey player Selin Oruz

Source: Team Germany / Adidas

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On the contrary: the outfits change between pleasant mint, yellow and red tones, the cuts correspond to a very contemporary athleisure aesthetic, the overall impression:

highly instagrammable.

More TikTok than Tupperware.

Or to put it another way: The collection is so internationally understandable from a trend point of view that the new, casual look in Tokyo is likely to cause confusion among the sporting competition: The Germans always looked so adorable, crazy - what's going on here ?!

Rider Simone Blum (who unfortunately cannot take part in the games) and tennis player Angelique Kerber

Source: Adidas

Gone are the days of the uncomfortable moments at torch relay and award ceremonies?

Looks like.

And that's why the style critic lets herself be carried away to the following memorable judgment at this point: Warning!

The T-shirts and windbreakers in the Team D design could even

be worn

almost

privately - there has probably never been greater praise for a German Olympic collection.

A small selection of fan merch is currently available for purchase.

And another look into the fashionable Olympic past:

Somewhat inconspicuous: 2016 in Rio

Source: dpa / Michael Kappeler

Would certainly trigger a shit storm in the wokeness age: the German Olympic outfit in pink (for women) and light blue (for men) in London in 2012

Source: dpa

Upright, upright, most upright: 2008 at the opening ceremony in Beijing

Source: pa / Augenklick / Ro / ROTH / AUGENKLICK

Excursion of the bank employees?

2004 in Athens

Source: pa / dpa / dpaweb / Gero Breloer

With sun hat in 2000 in Sydney

Source: pa / dpa / Afp Kazuhiro Nogi

Nineties-Chic 1996 in Atlanta

Source: pa / dpa / Frank Kleefeldt

1992 in Barcelona;

Steffi Graf can be seen in the front with the black pocket

Source: pa / dpa / Carsten Rehder

This photo was taken at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, but the rainbow explosion collection is without a doubt one of the most memorable German Olympic fashion moments ... n

Source: pa / ATP