Modern Tech Enhancing Olympic Swimming

Modern technology has the ability to enhance athletes’ athletic ability significantly by means of monitoring their performance and making them more efficient in a plethora of different ways.

Swimming, for instance, is all about speed, and any kind of technology that can enhance a swimmer’s speed can contribute to giving them a significant advantage overall.

While many competitions limit the use of advanced technology due to concerns of excluding certain athletes as a result of a lack of access to expensive equipment and so on, the Olympics provides more opportunities for swimmers to make use of modern technology.

Most, if not all, Olympic swimming teams are backed by big-name sponsors and brands, meaning that everybody has access to top-notch technology and equipment for both racing and training.

Of course, there’s plenty of technology involved in Olympic swimming that affects not only the competitors directly, but also the filming and broadcasting of races as well as race management and more.

Let’s have a look at some of the most significant modern technology that is enhancing Olympic swimming at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and beyond.

 

Swimsuits

 

Back in the early 20th century, swimsuits (or bathing costumes) were incredibly inefficient. Originally made from materials like wool, they were highly absorbent, making them heavy which resulted in swimmers being seriously slowed down.

Big changes were made by the ’70s, however, when there was a dramatic shift to nylon and lycra-based fabrics. These had completely different properties to things like wool that were used previously. Namely, these fabrics made swimsuits less absorbent, lighter and significantly more comfortable as they were more form-fitting.

Now, however, times have changed even more. Olympic-level swimsuits are made from high-tech materials that are specifically designed to help swimmers in every way possible. However, while the capabilities of modern technology are advanced, there are still regulations in place that limit how much a swimsuit can help a competitor. Thus, swimsuits need to be designed within these parameters.

Here are some specific aspects of modern Olympic swimwear:

• Optimised compression
• Tight, comfortable fit
• Hydrodynamics using advanced textile technology
• Lightweight
• Water-repellent technology

Ultimately, these qualities of modern professional swimwear contribute towards the main objective of compressing swimmers’ bodies in order to create a streamlined profile and reduce drag and water resistance.

 

Swimming Caps

 

The reasoning behind the use of specialised, high-tech swimming goggles and caps is largely the same as that behind swimsuits – the reduction of drag in the water.

This is especially true for swimming caps. Caps are designed to pull swimmers’ hair back, keeping it out of their faces and preventing it from ending up in the pool. And, the tighter the caps, the more streamlined they’ll be.

Now, there are a few ways they achieve this, in addition to wearing good-quality, tight swimming caps, and one of the main and most talked about methods is doubling up – and sometimes even tripling up – on swimming caps while competing.

Here’s why many Olympic swimmers wear more than one cap:

• In case one falls off
• For additional tightness
• Friction between the caps should decrease the chances of either falling off
• To cover goggle straps and reduce drag

In most cases, swimmers start off with a latex cap, put their goggles on top, and then cover it all up, goggle straps included with a silicone cap.

 

Goggles

 

Believe it or not, goggles weren’t actually widely used in competitive swimming until the 1970s, meaning that swimmers were just swimming with their eyes open which must’ve been not only difficult but wildly unpleasant too.

These days, however, things have completely changed and goggle technology has advanced significantly.

Technology has evolved in such a way that some brands have actually released smart goggles – goggles that can track performance data and more – but these aren’t used in the Olympics.

For actual competitions, the most important things to consider with goggles is comfort and drag. Thus, modern goggles are designed to fit the face comfortably, providing a balance of tightness without being too tight.

Modern tech has also helped improve the ability of designers to improve the suction on goggles to ensure that swimmers don’t experience leaks and get water in their eyes while racing.

 

 

Touchpads

 

In the old days, race times were recorded by officials with stopwatches, even in the Olympic Games, because there simply was no better way to do it. To improve accuracy, they would have a few different people assigned to each athlete and then aggregate their combined times to improve accuracy.

However, as the sport became increasingly competitive and swimmers’ times became closer and closer, this method became unusable. It simply doesn’t allow for recording times down to hundredths of a second and it introduces the possibility of human error.

Touchpads were established as the technological solution for this, and they’re installed on and above the wall. The regulations about the exact positioning of the touch pads, however, is slightly debated as many assert that the Olympic standard of having about 12 inches of the touchpad above the wall results in slower times overall. The standards are different in US national swimming.

Regardless of that contention, touch pads as a technological advancement in swimming have allowed for incredible accuracy in racing timing and recording. And, as a last resort, fail-safe option, there are still a few Olympic officials assigned to each lane just in case the touch pads fail to function effectively.

 

Training Equipment 

 

Having access to advanced research and subsequent training equipment can contribute significantly to swimmers’ abilities to excel competitively. While not all training equipment is super exciting in terms of being technologically modern, it is all based on high-end research geared towards helping swimmers improve their performance.

A few modern pieces of training equipment used by Olympic swimmers during training include:

• Kickboards
• Resistance bands
• Parachutes
• Pull buoys
• Paddles
• Fins
• Snorkels
• Power racks

…and more.

Some of these pieces of training equipment have been around for many years and have simply been modified slightly for the best possible performance. However, there are two pieces of modern technology that have been used by many Olympic athletes in their preparation for the Games:

• Smart swimming watches
• Heart-rate monitors
• Smart goggles

These devices fall into the category of IoT devices, tracking and recording activity and exchanging and analysing data with other applications.

This provides swimmers with a few different ways to analyse their performance from a purely data-driven perspective in the same way runners would measure their pace and more.

 

Filming

 

Technology has come leaps and bounds in terms of modern filming and photography, and one of the most challenging sports to capture at the Olympics has always been swimming.

This is due to the high definition required to be able to properly see swimmers through moving water, especially when there’s lots of splashing, as well as actual underwater photography.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games is experiencing the advantages of advanced lens technology and super high-speed cameras.

Official photographers are using cameras with telephoto lenses, modern sensor technology, incredibly fast apertures and advanced autofocus technology to allow for high-quality, sharp photos and video footage of swimmers in action.

Technology has also improved by means of image stabilisation features, reducing blurring which is fairly common in swimming.

Advancements in the speed of cameras also allows for photographers and videographers to capture rapid sequence action, ensuring that they’re able to get photos of split-second moments that can’t be predicted.