Olympians Don High-Tech Fashion Gear to Enhance Performance

By Al Tompkins

Athletic apparel companies count on the Olympics as a platform to launch new high-tech products. The SciFi Scanner put together a list of some of the newest products:

• "To help skiers go really fast (like Dash), Spyder has created a new 'slippery' race suit, made of three-layer bonded polyester, that reduces the coefficient of friction against the wind. ...

• "To help Canada's speed skaters glide across the ice as smoothly as Frozone did while escaping the Omnidroid, there's a new bodysuit from Japanese apparel company Descente. More aerodynamic than human skin, it's made from Thin Fit fabric that's only 0.3 millimeters thick.

• "The Zeal Transcend goggle, used by Canadian Olympic snowboarders, does a lot more than provide cover. Like Iron Man's heads-up display, the goggles contain a full-color LCD -- invisible while the wearer is gazing ahead -- that offers information about his or her speed, altitude, rate of descent, and jump length." 

The New York Times said that "the bodysuits could be the most significant development in the sport since clap skates":

"They bring to mind the Speedo LZR Racer that roiled the waters at the 2008 Beijing Games, where swimmers not clad in the cutting-edge suit complained of being at a competitive disadvantage.

"There has been no such outcry over the Descente suits. But unlike in 2008, when swimmers like the American Michael Phelps wore the LZR Racer in competitions leading up to the Olympics, the Canadian skaters have yet to race in their new suits. They have been wearing them in practices this month, but will not unveil them to the world until the Olympic speedskating competition begins Saturday."