SwimSuit Tech Wars 2.012 - Team GB Swimming Secret Weapon?
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Daily Mail posts "Swimmers' secret weapon is worth its weight in gold: Team GB to use new swimsuit that could give them advantage over rivals. Britain’s swimmers will wear kit that could give them as much as a 2 per cent advantage over many of their rivals in the pursuit of gold at the Olympics.
Australian swimming great Ian Thorpe – who helped to test the swimsuits – said he believed they could make a difference.
‘It might sound like a minimal advantage, but it could be significant,’ said the five-times Olympic champion, who described yesterday how he battled winds of 128km in a wind tunnel at a special testing centre in Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
But adidas say up to 70 per cent of Britain’s swimmers will be wearing them and experts from the company’s 80-strong innovations department believe they could be the difference between gold and silver.
The swimsuits will also be worn by the Germans, the French and some of the Australians.
Udo Mueller, a spokesman for the adidas innovations department, said: ‘We believe we have created a suit that will give all the swimmers who wear it a big advantage."
An article in The Independent quotes "Swimsuits worn by Adidas-sponsored swimmers are 36 per cent lighter than the Beijing suit, and absorb 32.5 per cent less water."
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