A bunch of swimming records were toppled at the recent World Aquatic Championships (and according to some observers) all due to swimsuit technology. From an article by Jonathan Liew on the Telegraph.co.uk website,

Full-body polyurethane suits will be banned from 2010, but will remain legal for the forthcoming [no longer] World Championships [2009], where Britain’s performance director Michael Scott has predicted 99 per cent of world records will be broken.

Locally, a University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) student Annamay Pierse broke a world record for the women’s 200-metre breaststroke in her semifinal heat at the championships. (details here on the Vancouver Sun website) She later went on to win the silver medal. (details here on the Toronto Star website) Not a word about the swimsuit controversy was mentioned in the local coverage.  I did finally track this down in a CBC report,

A spokesman for Swimming Canada said Canadian swimmers have the choice to wear what suit they wish, with many wearing the Jaked suits.

The swimsuits are said to give an unfair advantage. They’re not constructed with textiles, they are bonded together by ultrasonic welding so there are no seams, and there are panels which compress the torso apparently giving the wearer added bouyancy. Swimmers need to roll these suits on and it requires a significant amount of time (figure 30 to 45 minutes). The best technical description of the swimsuit that I found was in the June 14, 2008 (US) edition of The Economist. (It’s behind a paywall so I can’t offer a link.)

Nanotechnology was not mentioned in anything I found about the swimsuits but I wonder. If anyone knows one way or the other, please do comment.

There is some more news about Oscar Pistorius (the South African paralympic who successfully petitioned the Court of Arbitration for Sports for the right to compete against able-bodied athletes) mentioned in my July 27, 2009 posting. The experts in biomechanics and physiology who studied Pistorius in action and whose work formed the basis for his appeal have published their findings. From the Science Daily report,

The IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federations] had claimed that the Cheetah Flex-Foot prostheses (J-shaped, high-performance prostheses used for running) worn by Pistorius give him an advantage over able-bodied runners.

…

The [research] team concluded that:

• Pistorius’ energy cost of running is similar to that of accomplished male distance runners, but 17% lower than that of performance-matched male sprinters.
• Pistorius’ ability to hold his speed over longer sprint races is identical to that of intact-limb athletes.
• Pistorius sprinting mechanics are markedly dissimilar to intact-limb track athletes.

There are more details here at Science Daily.

At Don’t Leave Canada Behind, Rob Annan has published some more details about the Canadian Science Policy Conference which is being held Oct. 28-30, 2009 in Toronto, Ontario.  For Rob’s comments, go here and for the conference website, go here. Early bird registration by August 15, 2009.