Olympic swimmers and satellites orbiting Earth don’t have much in common. They both travel in straight lines, but the similarities pretty much end there.
In Paris, though, the racing suits worn by many of the swimmers competing, including the Canadians, will be coated in the same chemical used to protect satellites from radiation in space.
The goal of mixing space and swimming is to, conceivably, help the athletes glide more easily through the pool by making their suit more water-repellant, or “hydro-phobic” as the suit geeks say.
“It’s not visible to the human eye, you wouldn’t necessarily feel it in your hand,” said Coora Lavezzo, head of innovation at Aqualab, a research facility in London, England, that develops racing suits for Speedo.
“It’s got this kind of nano-coating on the top, which basically repels water. And the effect of that is it makes the swimmer basically slip through the water. It means that the water can’t stick to them; it’s not creating drag. It’s really just flowing past their body.”
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Behind the swimming events at every Summer Olympics is another fierce competition: the race for suit supremacy, a rivalry among manufacturers to push the envelope on design.
It’s an open question as to how much of it is just hype and marketing razzle-dazzle, versus actual advancement. But there’s a lot of money and glory at stake for the brand that wins.
Speedo’s the big fish, worn by the powerhouse Australia, Canada, and other countries. But Mizuno and TYR have made headway at recent Olympics through innovations of their own.
By invoking space in its models for Paris, Speedo has taken an early lead in the race to claim the most whiz-bang technology. The coating comes from Lamoral, a Dutch company that Speedo approached with the idea.
“We thought if they can protect satellites in the harshest conditions possible then they can probably help us to protect our suits and keep them as repellant for as long as possible,” Lavezzo said.
TYR has tinkered with its suits as well, reducing friction and improving the seams on the legs to help a swimmer kick, particularly late in a race.
“We have a frictionless yarn in the fabric, which was developed by the Italian military,” said Rachel Ripley, director of merchandising for TYR.
Not to be outdone Mizuno says it has tweaked a few things, too, rethinking its fabric and giving its suits more compression in key areas to help lift the swimmer’s hips, which makes them more buoyant in the water.
How much of that translates into world records is anyone’s guess.
The innovations are more incremental these days than revolutionary. All this talk of space makes for good chatter around the pool, but don’t expect a giant leap.
That’s because if you make the suit too good, it changes the sport.
After swimmers began dismantling world records 15 years ago in suits made with polyurethane, the sport’s governing body stepped in. Rules written since then dictate that suits must be made with permeable fabric, and the material can’t be too dense. There are also limitations on how they can be designed. Men can’t wear full body suits, for example, and are limited to jammers that start at the navel and end at the knee.
“It was the wild wild west of suits, there was no approval process, and it probably was needed to give fairness to the sport,” Ripley said of the new rules.
But that means the manufacturers must find ways to innovate without crossing the line.
“It’s a really interesting paradox that we work within,” Lavezzo said. “We’re really interested in innovation and pushing the boundaries. At the same time, we have to respect the integrity of the sport, and make sure that we’re not creating an unfair advantage where you’re making swimmers break records that perhaps they wouldn’t break by their own merits.”
When that happens, as it did in 2009, it leads to what’s known in the sport as ‘technological doping.’
Getting a suit approved these days can be difficult if the changes are too ambitious.
“Permeability and density are two things that, when we submit a suit, we’re fairly stressed about making sure it’s going to pass,” Ripley said.
Much of the benefit of suit innovation could be psychological. If a swimmer believes they are faster in a particular design, well, that can’t hurt.
At Mizuno, the company has noticed some athletes will opt for older-model suits, because they’ve won wearing them.
“Sometimes athletes will gravitate towards those older suits, just from a confidence thing, they’re used to it and the feeling of it, said Kathleen Schenke, associate brand marketing manager at Mizuno USA.
Canadian swimmer Josh Liendo, a contender for the podium in Paris, agrees that a suit is all about psychology. If it feels good, he’ll swim good. It’s one less thing to think about.
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“It’s going to be how you execute the race and how you handle it when the pressure is on,” Liendo said.
Maggie Mac Neil, who won gold for Canada in Tokyo three years ago, will take any fraction of a second a suit can shave.
“For me as a sprinter, the suit makes quite a bit bigger deal, I think, than someone that does an 800-metre, just because every 100th of a second counts,” Mac Neil said.