What will our Aussie athletes be wearing when we hit the track? Well lets take a look back over the last 100 years at what has come, then at the most up to date sports technology out there. It All Started With Plain Old Cotton 
Hurdlers at the 1908 Games. Source: i4.mirror.co.uk The first ever ‘Olympic 100-Metre Dash’ was in 1896, Thoman Burke won Gold in a cotton t-shirt and shorts. Pretty much what we all wear on sports day carnivals at school now days. But its a world apart from what our Aussie athleteswill be wearing when they step onto the track in London. Computer-modeled sneakers and wind-tunnel-tested polyurethane super suits, the most advanced fabrics that the world has ever seen. But lets take a look at why we started with cotton in the 19th century. Cotton’s individual fibres have a natural winding helix shape, which provides incredible amount of stretch (well compared to other sports fabrics like wool, ah the cricket). this means that you can keep the uniforms tight enough to provide good aerodynamics (they’re not flapping everywhere) but are still flexible enough not to constrict the movement of runners. It’s also very breathable and light. Because of this cotton was the choice fabric for ages. But there is one downside, cotton is very absorbent, meaning that if athletes sweat, causing runners to become soaked by the end of the race. Fast Forward 50 Years And We Have Nylon 
The 1956 Olympics were one big nylon party. Via: wiki.prov.vic.gov.au Nylon was around from 1935, invented some guy called DuPont, but it pretty much sat on a shelf for a decade, until the 1948 Olympic Games. We see for the first time nylon swimming suits. Remember how cotton soaks up all that sweat? well imagine swimming in cotton, you pretty much take half the pool water along with you. Nylon worked really well, as it absorbs hardly any water. The material is made up of long carbon chains. Additional to this, nylon is much smoother, reducing a lot of drag (drag is bad, that’s why we see so many swimmers with no hair). What About Shoes? They’re Important Right? Introducing The Cleat! 
Puma cleats worn by Armin Hary for his first-place 100m dash in the 1960 Olympics. Source: 30yearstoolate.com So we have nylon in the pool, could this wonder material be used in other sports? The answer is yes! Shoes began to use nylon for everthing but the soles and shoe laces, creating very light and strong footwear. A more important change came in shoe technology 1968. At this time we see a change in the material tracks are made from, with the introduction of a spongy synthetic material you see on today’s running tracks. Because of this, design of shoes became stripped down, with thin soles and tiny spikes for grip. Then Why Did We Go Barefoot In The 1960s? 
Abebe Bikila, running the marathon in the 1960 Olympics. Source: linkethiopia.org While everyone was enjoying all this great new sports techology in the 60s, Ethiopia runner Abebe Bikila competed and won the Olympic Marathon without any shoes on at all! This has been an ongoing discussion in the world of marathon running ever since, to shoe or not to shoe!? Barefoot advocates say that the ultra cushioning of sports shoes encourages bad form and studies have shown athletes to hit the ground harder and to shift weight unnecessarily onto the heel – which can be bad in both long marathons and short sprints. Barefoot runners still enter the Olympics from time to time, Kenya's Tegla Loroupe ran the 10k Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 without shoes, but it was not really that clear if there was any advantage. The Wife Bea… Err ‘Runners Singlet’ 
Different runners in the 1970s started to ask for different types of athletic clothing. Marathon runners wanted suits that were as light as possible, that did not absorb sweat, while speed runners were only really concerned with aerodynamics . The fabric was a mix of nylon and cotton, creating a light weight and tight fitting uniform. The marathon runner opted for a singlet that was light weight breathable, while speed runners wore tight fitting singlets that formed very few wrinkles for aerodynamics. While the technology was good, it was not at the level that we see today, but still we see that runners were already thinking about advanced concepts that the computer modelled uniforms of today all encompass. The Digital Age: Introducing the Nike Swift 
Nike Swift suits for the 2008 Games. Source: nikego.com With the 1990s comes the introduction and widespread use of computers. it took a while, but eventually sports suits became more and more advanced with the use of computer modelling. Until we get to today, introducing the 2008 Nike Swift. This incredible piece of sports technology incorporates fabric that is so smooth it creates less drag then human skin (shaved or not). The fabric is made from thousands of powder-like beads (known as Scotchlite created by 3M). testing revealed it reduced drag by up to 55%. It also made runners look like they were from Tron Legacy. The Cheat Sheet, The Speedo LZR 
This is the most incredible piece of sports technology to be ever introduced to an Olympic Games. So effective was the LZR that it broke 130 world records in 17 months after Bejing in 2008. Officials saw this as too good to be true and banned it from swimming. The suit compressed the swimmers upper body, making it a far more aerodynamic. It added buoyancy (made the swimmer float more) in the upper leg are where movement was low and added plank like armour all over the body, reducing flexibility, but greatly increasing speed. In total the whole suit reduced drag by 24% and lifted the swimmer, causing them to sit higher in the water. You can see why it was banned. And Today 2012: Introducing the Nike TurboSpeed 
This is the most advanced bit of sports kid about. Unveiled this year, we will have to wait and see if they find themselves onto the track for London 2012. Instead of attempting to create surfaces that are smooth to reduce drag. The TurboSpeed has added golf ball like dimples to the surface, as testing showed this to be more aerodynamic than a dead flat surface. They say it’ll shace off 0.023 of a second to any runners time. If true it could be the difference between bronze and gold.
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