The greatest insult any civilian could bestow upon a new clothes release is “I reckon I could have come up with that”. When Team GB’s Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic kits first popped up on X, that’s exactly what most people must have thought.

The core, Adidas designed kits are blue. Navy, to be precise. And bar some red text, the odd red go-faster stripe and the Team GB lion’s head in white, that’s about all there is to them. There are apparently 227 base styles across every sport and gender, and none of them are remotely interesting.

After last month’s national week of moaning when Nike decided to play around with the colours on a minute, back-of-collar St George’s Cross, there’s a minor sense of catharsis about this. A sports kit doesn’t have to say anything in particular, but this is really saying nothing.

The most sincere compliment you could pay the kit is that it’s clean. No-one could ever say too much thought has gone into it. It has the sterility of an operating theatre mixed with the simplicity of a kid’s book.

It is the buttered toast of sports kits, safely and rudimentarily mixing basic ingredients to produce something which might not cure your hangover, but certainly isn’t going to make it any worse.

Of course, crucially, this should mean no-one is offended by it. Try shitposting about this one, grandad. This isn’t an outfit Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak will need to comment on, but it is one they’ll probably buy.

The odds of the running top being given the Adidas Samba treatment by either the current or future Prime Minister seem almost guaranteed. This is prime politician’s clobber.

This is maybe slightly harsh on some of the designs. The outerwear – hoodies, jackets, joggers etc. – look comfortable, functional and the sort of thing you’d consider wearing to the gym, because it will allow you to seamlessly hide in the corner.

Crucially, they all have a small Union Jack on the left arm, just to ensure no-one is left in any doubt where the people wearing the “GREAT BRITAIN” kit are from. That’ll keep the flag-shaggers from the door. Adidas 1, Nike 0.

But really, this is more about the kits’ comfort and efficacy, and we’re told that 86 per cent of the gear available “enables athletes with and without disabilities to participate in comfort and without distraction”. Who knows what the other 14 per cent entails?

“In Paris, Adidas will capture the flame that burns within every athlete through impactful fonts and detailed graphics… signifying there is no international unifier like the passion for sport,” a statement read.

“To express the fire within athletes, the kits’ graphics, typeface and all over print use a repeated line pattern which is brought to life through pops of colour, conveying the roaring passion that is ready to emerge in the heat of competition.”

Read Next

There are other buzzphrases further on, like “embracing tradition while injecting newness” and “a navy base that provides the perfect canvas to unite athletes across many sports”, that mean equal amounts of nothing.

Of course, advertising babble like this isn’t new or individual, just another step in the desecration of the English language through trivialisation and sensationalism, slowly removing meaning by attempting to create it where it doesn’t exist. But the fact that they can’t even make this interesting shows just how dull this kit really is.

A great Olympic kit, like any sports kit, can make or break the aesthetic of a major event, an underappreciated key facet.

London 2012, the recent peak of soft patriotism and national sporting pride, with always be inextricably linked with Stella McCartney’s deconstructed Union Jack, much in the way France ’98 is defined by its Adidas and Nike kits and Footix-branded merch.

Meanwhile, Paris 2024 will be remembered via the least memorable kit since Team GB’s tepid white effort at Beijing 2008.

The media firestorm over the England kit showed that with criticism only ever a click away, it is no wonder designers revert into their shells and find the lowest common denominator that avoids upsetting anyone.

Of course, there are bigger issues to deal with surrounding the Olympics and Team GB, but amid the news UK Sport is cutting 25 per cent of its staff and ongoing debates surrounding payment and prize money, the least we could hope for is a good look to show off on the faeces-filled Seine.