Off topic, but does anyone know why the ladies’ swimsuits this year are nearly knee length?
My understanding, at least re men’s suits, is that they are high-tech (I don’t know how) and they take close to an hour to put on (I don’t know why). Upon reflection, I guess my answer didn’t help much, did it?
The swimsuits—both male and female—are specially designed to have less drag than the human body in the water. They have banned the suits that were made of a foam-like material that filled with small pockets of gas. Those actually caused bodies to rise in the water and resulted in 20 world records in Rome at the world championships in 2009.
All told, drag is reduced by roughly 8-9% using these suits.