Word: suits
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Once on, however, the suit often has an empowering effect on athletes - and there's no question that the hyper-designed racing suits of Speedo and TYR have contributed to a ton of new world records. Speedo claimed 33 of the first 36 medals in the Beijing games; swimmers in Speedo's LZR suits are breaking world records right and left. It obviously helps when you have Michael Phelps in your stable. Still, put one of these new suits on and you get a feeling of strength - a psychological superman cape. Even though I swim competitively, at first I didn...
...tried both. The TYR Tracer Rise, a $450, three-quarter-length body suit, has a large silver panel on the front with two thin stripes running from the inside of the back down the sides of the legs. These panels are made with a polyurethane coating, designed to eliminate drag. TYR spent more than three years working on the suit. The focus of its research, according to Matt Zimmer, promotions director, was the lightweight, water-repellent fabric and muscle contour compression. The idea behind the compression is two-fold: first of all it provides a barrier between water and skin...
Swimming in the Tracer I noticed the compression in my legs was greater than with any other suit I've worn. It made me feel explosive and helped me kick effectively. The suit felt light, like I was swimming in saltwater, and although it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world - it took 20 minutes to get into - it was fast...
...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...