Faster, stronger - but don't forget high-tech

Sydney: As he counts his glittering haul of gold at the Olympics, Australian hero Ian Thorpe might spare a thought for the fish curator at the British Museum of Natural Science.

In the bowels of the venerable London museum, the ideas behind the Thorpedo's revolutionary sharkskin swimming suit were born.

Perhaps more than in any other Olympics, obscure backroom scientists have made their mark in Sydney.

They are the bio-mechanists and hydro-dynamics experts who work in labs for Speedo, Nike, Adidas and the other major sports goods firms. They include boffins who tinker with 3D imaging and can talk for hours about anthropometry (the measurement of the human body) and proprioceptors (sensory end organs in the muscles).

Faster, higher, stronger is the mantra of the Olympic movement. But to get there these days no athlete can ignore high-tech.

Take the marathon runners whose Nike singlets are made entirely from recycled plastic drinks bottles.

Or the sprinters whose unique Z-shaped shoe spikes made by Adidas no longer puncture the track, cutting down on friction -- and therefore effort.And, of course, the swimmers clad in the most hyped scientific creation at the Games, Speedo's sharkskin suits with V-shaped ridges.

The fish curator came in handy for his observations about what makes a shark glide so effortlessly through the water, even though its bulky shape is not particularly well designed for speed. The answer: skin texture.

"From that we worked backwards to develop fabric," said Eve Davies, Speedo's Global Product Director.

Friction-free clothing

Sports scientists have toyed for decades with the dimples that give golf balls distance and the fuzz that give tennis balls their spin and bounce.

But until relatively recently, they paid less attention to the surface area of athletes.

Now, as world records become ever more elusive, a computer-assisted search is on for friction-free suiting and accessories that may shave a few hundredths of a second off an athlete's time.

To do so, sports designers have been hooking up with physicists and chemists involved in everything from space shots to paint and fibre.Armin Boehm at Adidas said his Innovation Team has worked with NASA doctors and wind-tunnel engineers at German carmaker Audi.

All this in the search for the ultimate high-performance clothing with no seams, pleats, cuffs or collars, designed to fit like a second skin and cut out drag. Adidas cycling suits are so precisely tailored that they wrinkle when riders are standing, but not when crouched.

"The results are dramatic," Boehm enthused.

"The proof for me is when the athletes accept the new concept."

Ever since the 1920s, when swimmers swapped heavy wool bathers for light-as-air silk, new fabrics have been transforming sports apparel.

Nike's marathon singlet was pioneered by Eddie Harber, a 33-year-old industrial designer whose previous job was inventing new kinds of body armour for the British army.

Although there is no magic in turning plastic bottles into polyester yarn -- it is a gimmick to be environmentally friendly -- the true innovation in the singlets is the bumps on the back that promote air circulation, explained Harber.

It is the same principle that inspires taxi drivers to sit on beaded mats.US sprinter Marion Jones and Australian track superstar Cathy Freeman may go to the starting blocks sheathed from head to foot in Nike "speed suits" designed to maintain optimum body warmth and gently squeeze the muscles.

It all depends on the air temperature on the day.

"If the weather is right, we're in business," said Harber.



(c) Reuters Limited.