High-Tech Gear for Olympic Athletes

By: Paul HochmanFri Jun 20, 2008 at 12:30 PM

Adidas Adistar Rowing Shoes | photograph by Steve Pyke

When it comes to finding that last bit of leverage over the Olympic competition, gear makers strain as hard as the athletes.

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Nike's New PreCool Vest | photograph by Steve Pyke

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Speedo LZR Racer | photograph by Steve Pyke

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"Most middle-distance races are won in the turns," explains Mic Lussier, the French-Canadian leader of the Adidas Innovation Team, or aIT, which developed the shoe. And track runners never, ever turn to the right. So Lussier's 50 biomechanical engineers, industrial designers, and electromechanical experts set about making asymmetrical spikes for Wariner. The skewed shoes would be founded on ultralight carbon plates made of microscopic nanotubes 20 times stronger than steel. And they would "redirect the line of force that loads on the outside of his right foot," Lussier says, "and send it inward, toward his big toe." In other words, Wariner's new right shoe would accelerate to the left.

"The idea is based on the same asymmetrical suspension you see in a Nascar stock car," Lussier says. "It's really quite amazing."

Even before he pulled the trigger on his company's pneumatic javelin gun, Gill Athletics' vice president of engineering, Jeff Watry, knew he had created a breakthrough Olympic spear. Still, he was curious to see just how far his new design could fly, so he disconnected the catapult's regulator and hooked the gun directly to the factory's compressed air.

"Uh-oh," he said to his team as they watched the javelin disappear over the company's headquarters in Champaign, Illinois. "That's farther than we thought." The new 800-gram OTE Composite FX landed a quarter mile away, in a pond behind another company's warehouse.

Watry's bench testing had already shown him that the OTE (one of two primary javelins you'll see during the men's event in Beijing; the other is made by the $7 billion Swedish materials-technology company Sandvik AB) had struck a near-perfect balance between weight and strength. But his challenge was not to make something light and aerodynamic; it was to design something light and aerodynamic that wouldn't destroy the athlete throwing it.

When an elite thrower releases a javelin correctly, it "goes through a point," flying out of the hand in a straight line at a 40-degree incline, as if it were being thrown through a bull's-eye: no wobble, no flutter. But a javelin shaft typically vibrates for two seconds after it's released, and since vibration hinders aerodynamic lift (by disturbing the flow of air around the shaft), many engineers began experimenting with javelins built of pure, vibration-absorbing carbon. There was only one problem: Pure-carbon javelins may not vibrate, but they "kill your thrower," Watry says. Instead of being released as a two-second-long flutter, all that energy is directed backward, into the athlete's body -- with dire consequences. "The guy would last about three months before his shoulder blew out," Watry explains. Shoulder and elbow injuries may be endemic to the sport, but all-carbon shafts made it downright unhealthy to throw a spear.

Watry's solution: He made an aluminum shaft (for elbow-friendly flexibility and "softness") and wrapped it in a spirally woven carbon sheet -- a giant toothpick swaddled in a carbon-fiber fishnet stocking. The 50-50 mix of materials reduced the forces exerted on the thrower's elbow, and cut the OTE's vibration time by 10%, a big margin by Olympic standards.

If that all sounds like a lot of labor for an item that will sell only about 30 copies (at $785 a pop) in the next year, remember: The Olympics are the mother of all loss leaders, and if everything goes well, Watry says, Gill-branded javelins will be on all three levels of the medal stand this summer. That's the hottest 60-second spot on television for the company's vast product line.

Speedo's brand image hit a high-water mark in 1972 when a mustachioed Mark Spitz won seven gold medals in the company's star-spangled nylon-elastane briefs. But the Nottingham, England -- based company's success in the Olympic pool had begun with its first world record in 1932 -- and has been constant since. For example, during three consecutive Olympics, from 1968 to 1976, the brand was worn by an estimated 70% of medalists, including 27 of 29 gold medalists in Mexico City.

If there has been a dark side to Speedo's hegemony, it lies in its product's minimalism. The mere word "Speedo" conjures images of plump, pallid Germans basking on the Côte d'Azur in unter-size beachwear. Today, however, Speedo looms large. In February, the company introduced a full-body swimsuit so fast it has inspired regulatory scrutiny, international controversy, athlete-sponsorship defections, and -- in Italy, not surprisingly -- fist shaking.