Nike TurboSpeed Suit to Give US athletes advantage...

[Trackrunner]

I guess we'll be seeing a whole bunch of new records on the track in London:

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Nike - who sponsor the U.S. team - have unveiled the TurboSpeed suit, which they claim can knock 0.23 seconds off a 100 metre sprint.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1uoQVmBPg

[Marlow]

they claim can knock 0.23 seconds off a 100 metre sprint.

I'd believe 0.023 . . . maybe.

[guru]

Members of the American Olympic athletics team will have a technical advantage over their fastest rivals.

Apparently it just got tougher to make the US 110 hurdle team...

[Marlow]

Members of the American Olympic athletics team will have a technical advantage over their fastest rivals.

Apparently it just got tougher to make the US 110 hurdle team...

Meaning non-Nike athletes . . . I'll believe it when the WRs start flowing as they did when the hi-tech swim-suits came out. Air resistance ain't quite the same as water resistance.

[guru]

Apparently it just got tougher to make the US 110 hurdle team...

Meaning non-Nike athletes . . .

Nope

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/ ... 34x451.jpg

[Marlow]

Apparently it just got tougher to make the US 110 hurdle team...

Meaning non-Nike athletes . . .

Nope
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/ ... 34x451.jpg

How does Liu affect making OUR team?

[guru]

Apparently it just got tougher to make the US 110 hurdle team...

Meaning non-Nike athletes . . .

Nope
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/ ... 34x451.jpg

How does Liu affect making OUR team?

Apparently, you're missing my point.

Let's revisit the premise of the story

Members of the American Olympic athletics team will have a technical advantage over their fastest rivals.

[JumboElliott]

Nike's official release says .023
http://nikeinc.com/news/track-field-nik ... nline/7986

[Marlow]

Members of the American Olympic athletics team will have a technical advantage over their fastest rivals.

Oh . . . you were making a jest . . . ha . . . ha . . . ha . . .

[Marlow]

Nike's official release says .023

that's better, but what says JRM? Still seems a little high, given the properties of regular spandex.
Would the suit's 'efficiency' increase in a stiff headwind?
Was Flo-jo's 1988 speed-suit (with hood) of a like ilk?

[JumboElliott]

I don't know how much I buy it. It sounds like they're trying to sell shoes.

[Speedster]

12 years on from Cathy Freeman wearing it in the 400m final, I've not seeN anyone wear the swift suit or similar in a sprint final. Seems like a big risk to race in something new when an Olympic Gold is up for grabs.

[gh]

I find it very hard to believe that Nike won't make the suit available to any of the nations it sponsors (note that Liu is one of the models). If they didn't, they'd be handing their business over to adidas/Puma/whomever.

Just the Daily Mail not being bright enough and rushing to judgment in an effort to create a nice little scandal to sell papers.

And their 0.23; what's a decimal place among friends?

I'm sure JRM can explain the aerodynamics, but it's obviously the same application of physics that led to the development of the rough-tail javelin,which the IAAF promptly banned.

[Cooter Brown]

Is there still a rule that all equipment must be available commercially to all competitors? This was the rule that affected the American vaulters in '72. I'm also assuming that clothing is considered equipment.

[JRM]

Apart from looking like they're out of TRON: Legacy, I doubt these suits will have much impact (swift-suit revisited). I'd be curious to know how they derived their 0.023s figure.

[Blues]

"The TurboSpeed is a super-light track suit that Nike claims will improve 100-meter dash times by as much as .023 seconds. To put that into perspective, in the 2008 Olympics 100-meter men’s final, .023 seconds would have been the difference between a personal best and a world record for the winner, Usain Bolt. It would have also been the difference between a 4th-place finish and a 3rd-place finish. Granted, we don’t know if that figure holds for the real world. But it is a remarkably big claim.

The mega-brand developed the suit over thousands of hours of wind tunnel tests, and as a result, it’s zoned with aerodynamic dimples that reduce drag on an athlete’s shoulders, arms, and calves (areas where resistance is strongest). How do these textured zones improve speed? They rely on the same science that explains the convex dimpled pattern found on golf balls. Those dimples help balls travel further because they create low pressure turbulence in the boundary layer on the wind-facing side of the ball as it’s flying through the air, which ultimately means less drag behind the ball. The tiny circular shapes on Nike’s suit work according to the same principle."

"Nike sponsored athletes from the USA, Russia, Germany and China national squads will be donning the impressive gear starting from April.".......
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http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669741/ins ... ak-records