High-Tech Gear for Olympic Athletes

By: Paul HochmanJuly 1, 2008

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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The controversy springs from the way Speedo outfoxed the rule governing swimsuits: FINA, the sport's international federation, bars suits that create buoyancy. No suit may "lift" a swimmer or make her lighter. No air bubbles. No fins or spoilers. Given two swimmers of equal power, however, the smaller one slips through the water faster. So Speedo's new LZR (pronounced "laser") Racer doesn't lift; it squeezes, exploiting a swimming-pool loophole in the Universal Law of Sports Technology. If the law insists that you can have something lighter or stronger, but not both, Speedo decided to make its swimmers "lighter" by making its suit stronger, using a NASA-tested black sheathing that compresses the body with 70 times more force -- 7 kilograms per meter -- than the nylon-elastane standard. And the suit doesn't just make swimmers smaller, it makes them sleeker, too: Speedo used the powerful material to remold athletes into a more ideal hydrodynamic shape. Working in water flumes in New Zealand and test facilities in Australia, and using computational fluid dynamics software invented by Ansys, the company determined where a swimmer's "form drag" (turbulence caused by a body's shape) is most acute. It then inserted slippery, polyurethane panels to compress and reshape those body parts -- buttocks, breasts, upper thighs -- most responsible for the drag.

When the LZR Racer appeared at the world short-course championships in Manchester, England, in April, the swimming world went off the deep end. While the LZR Racer was FINA-approved and available to any athlete who wanted one (including you, as of this fall), it was clearly faster than offerings from competitors such as TYR, Adidas, Mizuno, and Nike. There were rumors of elite athletes jilting their sponsors on the pool deck and slipping into a Speedo. Italian coach Alberto Castagnetti claimed use of the suit was the equivalent of "technological doping." Head American coach Mark Schubert says Americans sponsored by other brands will have "a black-and-white decision" when they get to Beijing: "The money or the gold medal." German swimmer Thomas Rupprath went so far as to suggest apostasy -- that his country's swimming federation dump German-made Adidas suits in favor of Speedo's. "Otherwise," he says, "we will sink completely into mediocrity." As of late May, 41 world records had been set since the LZR Racer was introduced: 37 of those swimmers were wearing it.

The Italian swim coach claimed Speedo's suit was the equivalent of "technological doping."

Nowhere do the extreme technical precision and naked commercial yearning of Olympic research coexist more naturally than at Nike. And this year, Nike is producing Olympic gear on a larger and vastly messier scale than at any other time in its history: The company will introduce 68 event-specific shoes for all 28 sports and their various disciplines in Beijing (up from 11 sports in Athens); new high-temperature-specific apparel for USA Track & Field and USA Basketball uniforms; and outfits for more than 120 individual countries and federations.

Nike's global manager for Beijing, Kris Aman, is charged with preparing the company for the Games and beyond. In what he calls a "two-headed monster of process management," Nike has decided to offer nearly all of its Olympic innovations to everyday consumers in September. (Nike's primary competitor, Adidas, will also offer many of its Olympic shoes at retail this August, through distributor Eastbay Inc.)

But the new Olympic idea with the biggest commercial potential is Flywire -- not because every kid will want the shoe, but because Flywire reinvents how shoes are made.

The inspiration for the new construction came from the cables on a suspension bridge. Rather than cords of steel, Flywire uses thin, strong-as-steel threads of Vectran, placed in fan-shaped clusters of between 10 and 20 strands, each about 3 inches in length. The strands are positioned at key points -- the forefoot, the heel, and so on -- and anchored to the shoe only at the ends; a scrim between the foot and the filaments keeps out rocks and debris but has no larger structural role. Up close, you can see through a Flywire shoe in the same way you can see through a house that's just been framed with two-by-fours.

Predictably, a shoe made of thread and a slip of fabric is incredibly light. "When I tossed one up in the air," NBA MVP Kobe Bryant says of his Flywire-based HyperDunk, "I wasn't sure it was going to come back down." The surprise lies in how strong the new construction is -- and how Flywire could change Nike, maybe even the shoe industry itself.