Is it too much to ask Olympic athletes to wear professional costumes?

The "wardrobe malfunction" of one of the figure skaters, Yura Min, an American citizen representing South Korea at the Olympics, was fussed and frou-froued about as something tabloid-worthy for much of the press.  Oops, a wardrobe malfunction, get the camera out.  It was explained by Min as such: "But, as we all know, stuff happens."  It certainly overshadowed her performance, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed, coming in at ninth place.

But seriously.  Wasn't Tonya Harding's untied shoelace incident, where she had to stop and restart her program, kind of a warning to be absolutely sure about one's attire before performing that one-shot skating routine, the one that cost all those hours and all those millions?

And more to the point, what's the point of wearing ultra-sexy skating costumes if they don't stay on during the routine?  What was Min selling?

Is it really that hard to get something attractive that stays on, such as what Nancy Kerrigan wore to the 1994 Olympics?  Look at the great aesthetics of this costume in the picture of Kerrigan here.  You can see here how it accommodates her every body move during the event.  And it completely covers her up, so as not to distract from her performance.

The problem seems to be that skaters are influenced in their choice of costumes by the pop star world and the dream of putting on those utterly edited, processed and PhotoShopped shows, complete with the Hollywood morals in their own choices of costumes for what is, after all, a live athletic event.  If it's not pop stars, it's video world, and the skimpily dressed women of very big, uh, assets, featured in the cartoon video games.

That's what they are exposed to, and they have no other context.

Obviously, Min indicates feeling embarrassed now, yet she doesn't seem to recognize that maybe a world-class, all-cameras athletic event requires something better than Britney Spears or Beyoncé or Hollywood Boulevard attire.  To be fair, it's a reality that very young women are often unaware of the messages they are sending by their attire and unsophisticated in their choices of clothing.  But someone should have told her "no" about that unmeshed red costume that was fastened with hooks for that hundred-mile-an-hour, all-twists-and-turns athletic event.

It wouldn't hurt for the Olympics to require professional costumes and dock those who don't comply, or, as at Wimbledon, just not let them in if they aren't wearing the right costume – in Wimbledon's case, professional tennis white.  It's a culture shift that's needed.  Considering that she came in at ninth place, this incident is probably all Min will be remembered for.