Competition in the pool at this month’s Beijing Olympics will be not only among world-class swimmers but also their swimsuits. Since its debut in February, the low-drag hydrophobic Fastskin LZR Racer swimsuit from Speedo International Ltd has had more than 44 world records broken in it; critics allege that the $600 “space-age” suit, in part developed by NASA scientists, gives its wearers an unfair boost in buoyancy and amounts to “technological doping.” The company claims a 5% decrease in drag over the previous model but no buoyancy increase, and the suit, along with competing models, has been approved for Olympic competition by FINA, the international swimming federation.
The LZR Racer is a descendant of the full-body swimsuit Speedo introduced in 2000 to mimic the viscous-drag-reducing denticles on a shark’s skin. The shark suit proved that surface-engineered synthetic materials can be made to have lower drag than a swimmer’s shaved skin....
