From About.com: A stitch free, low-drag, super-light swimsuit is the newest swim wear for Arena swimmers. The Arena Powerskin R-EVOLUTION claims to be the fastest, lightest, smoothest swim suit ever made. The suit is being released at the 2008 European Championships. Look for it on swimmers like Manaudou, Rosolino, Magnini, and Jedrejczak.Also, the suit was either vetted or co-designed by biomechanical specialists at the
Universite de Reims, Champagne Ardenne led by a professor named Redha Taiar whose team tested the suit in a flume at the High Performance Olympic Center in Berlin. (A flume is like a wind tunnel but only water driven.) What really has me interested in this suit is that a scientist named Alfio Quarteroni did the number crunching so as to develop computer models that would quantify drag reduction and speed increase too. Why this interests me is because this fellow was the "propeller head" who was responsible for the computer models/simulations for the Alinghi, a yacht that won of the world's most famous yachting regatta, The America's Cup in 2003 and 2007.Now what separates this suit from the TYR, the blueseventy and the Fastskin is that this suit is 100% stitchless and has zero seams on the front. They also make a bold statement that in a 50 meter race, times averaged a 0.54 advantage over the previous Arena Powerskin suit. I saw Gary Hall stormed the 50 fly in the previous suit at LCM Nationals a couple years back and I think he wore a Powerskin when he won a gold in Athens?
I still haven't made up my mind on a speedsuit but this suit is on my radar whereas I won't even consider the Speedo.
To the right is a shot of the flume at the High Performance Olympic Center in Berlin which I yanked from the Arena site and here is a link to the Arena Powerskin site: [Link]
2 comments:
Why won't you consider the Speedo?
Three reasons in this order - after purchasing Speedo Fastskin leggings, my times were not as fast when I was wearing TYRs. The last straw came when I wore the leggings in a 800 SCM race and I felt like I was wearing a drag suit after 200 meters When I put my TYR back on, I set three personal bests in the 50scm, 200scm, and 400scm.
The next reason is that the new Speedo Fastskin would make me look like a fat, cosplaying, 'trekkie.' Even Michael Phelps looks fat in it.
The last reason, Speedo endorses the Wasserman Media Group with its advertising budget. I won't support companies that give money to those entities that pulled videos from my site and who want to close down Floswimming.
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