Four years after U.S. Speedskating failed to medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics, with some public grumbling that the uniform suits contributed to the unexpectedly poor showing, Under Armour has unveiled an updated version for next month’s games that feature a new fabric and a daring asymmetrical seam.
The Mach 39 suits the U.S. Olympians wore in Sochi had a vent on the back of the suit, designed to let heat escape but some suspect permitted air to enter and slow the athlete by creating drag. Shani Davis, a pre-race medal favorite who finished eighth in the 1,000 meters, later called the suits “defective” althoughU.S. Speedskating’s internal audit found no problem with the design, instead blaming a host of other factors.
The new version has removed the vent and introduced H1, what Under Armour calls the most aerodynamic fabric it has ever produced. Portions of the suit have a dimpled texture to reduce drag, and the seam running from the left leg to the right shoulder is said to reduce bunching and help with predictable movements of the skaters, as the course only involves left turns.
“We’re trying to get the body to be more aerodynamic than it is in its natural state,” Clay Dean, chief innovation officer at Under Armour, told Wired.
Dean also told the New York Times that the design team used more than 100 fabrics in more than 250 blends to settle on the chosen fabric after some 100 hours of wind tunnel testing at Specialized, a bicycle manufacturer. Specialized’s director of integrated technologies, Chris Yu, described the Fabric to Wired as “a very fine grit sandpaper” to create the “golf ball dimple effect.” Only patches of the suit have the H1 fabric because too much of the texture can be detrimental. “You can’t add roughness willy nilly,” Yu said.
New suits =
#WEWILL pic.twitter.com/BHyod41bht
— US Speedskating (@USSpeedskating) January 25, 2018
Under Armour, which has been reeling from a sinking stock price, invested far more than the time and money into suit R&D to help the speedskating team. According to Men’s Fitness, the apparel giant dedicated 56 employees and thousands of hours of manpower to help the Olympians with all facets of their training, from sleep and nutrition to Fusionetics and tai chi. Fusionetics consists of functional movement testing to prevent injuries; the tai chi helped with relaxation. The team also began wearing Omegawave monitors for sophisticated heart-rate variability tracking to guide training.
There was another key change from the previous Olympic cycle four years ago, and the only contributing factor U.S. Speedskating ascribed to Under Armour. The Mach 39 suits were provided to the athletes only a month before the Games, which meant they couldn’t be tested in competition, whereas the new suits were distributed a year ago so the skaters could acclimate to the fit and feel.