The magic swimsuit

A super-light high-tech swimsuit by a British manufacturer is stirring up professional sports. Not really explain the magic of this garment - but customers have set up more than 40 world records.

Like a confession of failure. A few days ago, Nike, a US sports goods manufacturer, allowed swimmers to join the Olympics to contract with a group to use a competitor's product from England, is the "Speedo LZR Racer" swimsuit. People do not want to prevent sportsmen from making the best results.

Since its introduction in February, a Speedo swimsuit weighing more than 200 grams has caused great disruption in the swimming world. Over the past time, there have been more than 40 world records set up with sports wears. The praise of American athlete Michael Phelps almost became a voice: "When I was under water, I felt like a rocket:"

Swimming star Michael Phelps also wears a new swimsuit.

Speedo is developed from a super project: Half a dozen research teams on 3 continents have studied this shirt thoroughly. First, they measured 400 top swimmers around the world to determine the shape of the new product. They then experimented with 100 different combinations of materials and poses.

Many experiments right up to NASA's wind channel were also conducted. Mathematicians like Herve Morvan in Nottingham in England, specializing in computational fluid mechanics, look in the computer model of the athlete's body points in which water is most swirled.

The resistance in swimming by the top athletes is so great that it is hard to imagine. According to researchers in Australia, it is in the range of 11 to 12 kg, which is equivalent to the force people feel when sticking their heads out of the running umbrella door at a speed of 145 km / h.

For years, researchers have sought to minimize drag in the tank. Swimming suits like most of today's top athletes have been around since the mid-1990s. In addition, the first 10 years ago began to emerge the first samples with a small surface structure. adapt to the skin of the shark. Thanks to that, the resistance is further reduced. Knut Braun, a biologist at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken (Germany), tested a shark skin swimsuit a few years ago but was disappointed because the results were unclear.

The new Speedo swimwear is advertised to reduce water resistance by 5 to 10% and start faster than 4%. It is explained that it is made of a special nylon-lycra material, "welded" together by ultrasound. Something like a frame pressed against a certain body shape, making muscles more rigid and stable. Even the bodies of solid athletes are pressed again through this swimsuit.

But many people are skeptical about its true effect

It is also possible that the swimsuit is helping the cheating athletes hide doping. At least American swimmer Gary Hall expressed this suspicion. "I believe all the compliments about this new swimsuit are just to distract the effects of doping." This situation happened once in 1976, during which the female swimmers of the German Democratic Republic pocketed countless medals and also explained with new swimsuits. But instead, it's actually doping.

The swimmers predicters also have doubts that there is a big difference between the top swimwear manufacturers' models. There are almost no measurable differences at the critical points, pressure, body tension and surface resistance.

There may also be another simple explanation for the world record speed storm of Speedo swimmers: "They are energizing for the time being," said sportsman Klaus-Michael Braumann. "Swimsuit only plays a small role," said biologist Braun.