A Suit Designed for Olympic Swimmers

LONDON, March 6, 2008 — -- It looks like a space suit. It's called the LZR Raser and the Beijing Olympics next summer may well show its true worth. Speedo, the UK-based swimwear brand, claims that its new swimsuit created in collaboration with NASA may help swimmers get the faster edge.

The suit, which would not look out of place in the "Star Trek" crew's wardrobe, is made of an ultra-lightweight, low-drag and fast-drying fabric that repels water, helping the best swimmers to shave seconds off their times. "When I was diving off the block […] I went gliding," swimming champion, Michael Phelps said while wearing it. "I felt good. I felt like a rocket."

Looking for the perfect swimming equipment, Aqualab, Speedo International's research and development team, has tapped the expertise of NASA researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., which had already worked on drag-reduction technology for boats, including an America's Cup winner.

Usually dealing with the properties of air, the aerospace engineers applied the same principles to the water. "Air has different fluid properties than water […], but it still obeys the same physical laws of motion," said Steve Wilkinson, a researcher at Langley's Fluid Physics and Control Branch.

The thing that prevents swimmers from going faster is what scientists call skin friction. It accounts for one-third of the force holding back the body under water. In a traditional suit there is a lot of skin movement, no matter how thin or fat a body is. The new Speedo suit controls a lot of this extra movement.

How does it do this? NASA researchers tested more than 60 different fabrics and patterns to see which one among them had the lowest drag. "The tests generally have shown the smoother the fabric, the lower the drag," Wilkinson said.

Once they found the best possible fabric, Aqualab officials needed to identify those areas of the swimmer's body that created the most friction. They scanned 400 elite swimmers, placed low-friction panels on critical areas, and then welded the suit to create an aerodynamic shape. The result is that "It feels like having a second skin," as Natalie Caughlin, winner of two gold medals at the 2004 Games, describes it.

And it is precisely this, according to Novella Calligaris, that makes a good swimsuit. The former Italian Olympic gold medalist told ABC News: "What makes a good swimsuit is its adherence to the body. When I used to swim in the 70s we would stick the suit to the body with glue. The water that penetrates between the fabric and the skin is heavy and slows down the motion. Adherence is the only thing that counts. Anything else is a gimmick."

But even if a suit makes a difference in high-level competition, swimming Coach Bryan Beary of the Asphalt Green Swim Club in Manhattan stressed that it is not as important as the swimmer wearing it. "It might be true that [the Speedo suit] reduces the negative impact of other suits but practice counts more than anything else!"

The Speedo team agreed: "Personal performance will always remain the determining factor in winning a race and although the suit […] aims to increase every aspect of a swimmer's performance, it is the key combination of the swimmer themselves and their own speed only that influences competitions."

That's why they reject the suggestion that the suit could give a swimmer an unfair advantage: "[the LZR Raser] is available to all and has been fully approved by FINA, the world governing body of the sport."

The next big test will be at the Beijing Olympics this summer when the world will discover if the new Speedo suit (priced at $640) really merits all the hype.