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...this Olympics, TYR had to alter its design focus. Four years ago, the company had developed a suit called the Aqua Shift, using a technology borrowed from airplanes and Formula One car racing, but never before used on a swimsuit. It used a system of turbulators, or tripwires, that wrap around the chest and back and disrupt, or trip, the flow of water down the body. This was significant because in previous attempts to reduce drag, the water would run quickly down the body and then form an eddy that would literally pull the swimmer backwards. So, in effect...
After having battled with FINA over this and other technologies, the TYR team decided to take a more holistic approach to the suit for 2008. While it spent plenty of time in the lab developing fabric and design structure, TYR focused most of its efforts on the swimmers and in the pool. Eric Shanteau, a member of the American Olympic team, swam seven personal best times at trials in a suit that he helped design. (Yes, he's the guy who went to Beijing despite a diagnosis of testicular cancer.) Shanteau, for example, had about an inch and a half...
Speedo has clearly won the Battle of Beijing. After Athens, Speedo brought an army of biophysicists, kinesiologists, and engineers to bear on overhauling the last generation of its Fastskin racing suit, the FS Pro. So the LZR Racer has a few more bells and whistles than the Tracer Rise. For one thing, it looks a lot cooler. The long grey panels - you feel like an astronaut crossed with a figure skater - are products of multiple levels of technological innovation. Speedo used a NASA lab to measure more than 90 different fabrics in a wind tunnel to find the one with...
...Sharp, if "you can get rid of that little bit of scoop in the small of the back, you won't have nearly the amount of crashing of water into the top of the buttocks." So, by adding a bonded layer of elastic fabric to the inside of the suit around the abdomen and lower back, the core stabilizer compresses the hips and helps the swimmer maintain a flat, streamline position in the water...
Like TYR, Speedo also received feedback from swimmers, including Australia's Grant Hackett, Americans Natalie Coughlin, Ryan Lochte and, of course, Mr. Phelps. These swimmers helped tweak the feel of the suit, as well as submitting themselves to full body scans and hand measurements (400 in total) to help create a digital framework for the design...