Recently, as a part of my Innovative Materials module I have been researching swimsuits and especially the ones banned by FINA. It would be funny to think that this was merely because Michael Phelps lost to Biedermann in the World Champs in Rome 2009, but there is sense in what these people are saying. 50%-100% Polyurethane swimsuits have been developed by many of the leading manufacturers including Speedo, TYR and Adidas. Mainly, they work the same way aerodynamics works on any production or race car, as shown below on the Speedo LZR swimsuit that has now been banned.
Before this research, though, I did not understand how clever these suits are. Polyurethane suits have a sort of a foam in them which has tiny bubbles of air in it and naturally, trapping air inside your suit lifts you in water, giving you an advantage due to lesser friction, if you will. The detail to which these things have been engineered to is incredible - the suit is entirely glued together to reduce the negative fluid dynamics effects of the seams. The suit is very hard and doesn't stretch which means once on, it compresses muscles. Compressed muscles use less energy in motion and thus allow the swimmer to keep going for longer and harder.
All this makes me think of people like Dwight Howard, the Orlando Magic starting center in the NBA. He always wears an Adidas vest under his jersey and I can't help but suspect it's no ordinary wife-beater. In the post, a player needs his upper-body strength and I wonder if superman is getting a little extra oomph from his attire. I'm not accusing, because I know he has game, but still. And when we come to this discussion, what chance do normal athletes have against the engineered ones? Is this where design makes the rich nations dominate and poor disappear? What happened to the ability to put everything out in a fair battle on the field, court or ice? Well, not ice, because everything's rigged there anyway.
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