Jutta Leerdam's Nike sports bra flash symbolic of new era
· Toronto Sun
In 1999, Brandi Chastain dropped to her knees at the Rose Bowl, ripped off her jersey and revealed a black Nike sports bra seen around the world.
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In 2026, Jutta Leerdam unzipped her speed skating suit at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, revealing a white Nike sports bra — and may have banked more than $1 million for the moment.
Same undergarment, very different era.
Chastain’s goal sealed the 1999 Women’s World Cup for the U.S. against China. Ninety-thousand fans packed the Rose Bowl; 40 million more watched on TV, per the Los Angeles Times .
The stadium, Chastain told BBC News , went eerily silent before her kick.
“The stadium was so incredibly quiet — it’s amazing how 90,000 plus people could be silent — if I had to stop, I could hear my heart beating,” she said.
Game-winning goal
She wasn’t even supposed to shoot with her left foot.
“I had never taken a penalty kick with my left foot ever before in a competitive match let alone a World Cup,” Chastain said.
But she trusted the plan, and the ball hit the net. The U.S. won.
“I whipped off that shirt … it was truly genuine and it was insane and it was a relief and it was joy and it was gratitude all wrapped into one,” she told BBC News .
The photo exploded
Newsweek , Sports Illustrated and Time all put it on their covers. It became one of the most powerful images in women’s sports history. But not everyone cheered. Plenty of male players had ripped off jerseys before. A woman doing it, however? That was “too much” for some, per BBC News . Critics said it was inappropriate. They accused her of taking attention away from the sport.
Still, marketing executives now call it a turning point.
“That was an iconic moment but it transcended sport,” Chrissy Franklin of Octagon told the Los Angeles Times . “She opened the door for women to be unapologetic about their success.”
Did Chastain get a Nike endorsement?
The sports bra moment wasn’t planned as an ad, but it became a marketing jackpot for Chastain. After the tournament, she signed endorsement deals, including with Nike, and appeared in commercials, along with brands like Gatorade and Bud Light, according to Forbes .
Fast-forward 27 years. Leerdam didn’t just win gold in the 1,000m in Milano-Cortina — she broke the Olympic record. Then she unzipped her suit, revealing Nike as cameras zoomed in. The image went viral within minutes. Nike blasted it to nearly 300 million followers on Instagram, per our earlier Toronto Sun story.
This time? No moral panic just marketing
“With Nike, I suspect you’re looking at a figure of over a million,” Frederique de Laat of Branthlete told AD , per the Daily Mail .
That’s the difference.
Chastain’s moment was raw, spontaneous and controversial. It changed how America saw women’s sports. It earned her endorsements — but, in 1999, female athletes weren’t commanding seven-figure brand payouts for one viral shot.
Leerdam’s moment was perfectly framed for the social media age — and potentially worth more than her gold medal itself.
Same sports bra — but one sparked debate about decency, and the other might spark a million-dollar payout.