Athletics is just a convoluted exercise in product marketing. Sports attract eyeballs, sponsors pay for the sports so they can put advertisements in front of those eyeballs and hopefully generate additional revenue.
Sex sells. So female volleyball players have outfits that will attract additional male eyeballs. I'm sure the same goes for tennis, as another great example. Nobody was watching Anna Kournikova back in the day for her technical proficiency with a racket. They watched her bent over in a tiny white skirt.
Search on YouTube for "female long jumpers"...notice anything consistent about the thumbnails? Why do the cameramen at these sports events seem so adroit at focusing on the most callipygian of the ladies?
Speak for yourself only, please; I watched for the tennis aspect. When all female athletes are wearing the same kind of clothes, it was easy to overlook the sexualization of it, at least until HD TV in the 2000's.
I love that there's a word for "well-shaped buttocks".
I've always found it weird that some sports have women wearing scant clothing compared to the mens events. Volleyball for example is a big one where it's unclear how bikini bottoms help over shorts.