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Speedo speeds suits to winter athletes By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY Here's a little something some famous bobsledders will slip into for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games: Speedos. Winter Olympian Chris Soule models a suit for sledders. And they won't be shivering. Speedo, best-known for skimpy swimwear, is entering the increasingly lucrative world of high-tech performance wear for winter sports. The same company that put swimmer Michael Phelps in its $400 high-tech swimsuit for the Summer Games already announced that it signed a team of U.S. Olympic hopefuls — led by Olympic gold medal bobsledder Vonetta Flowers — to wear its aerodynamic Fastskin FSII ice suits for bobsledding in Torino, Italy in February. (Photo gallery: Not just swimwear) Want one? The $500 ice suits will be sold at speedousa.com beginning in early 2006. The estimated $2 billion world of performance athletic wear — underscored by the stock market debut of Under Armour, which closed Wednesday at $22.51 after going out Friday with an IPO price of $13 — is the fastest-growing segment in sports apparel, says John Horan, publisher of Sporting Goods Intelligence. And Speedo wants more than a little piece of it. By Ezra Shaw, Getty Images via Speedo Olympic bobsled gold medalist Vonetta Flowers' uniform mimics shark skin to reduce drag. "It's a wonder they haven't done it before," says Horan. "It's a brand name that could clearly apply to any speed sport." The move can't come soon enough, says Jennifer Aaker, marketing professor at Stanford University. "The visual imagery of Speedo remains a tremendous liability," she says. "It conjures up images of a tight, small, outdated swimsuit." It's savvy strategy for Speedo, she says, even though it's hard for any company to overcome long-held consumer perceptions. Speedo executives prefer to call them consumer misperceptions. For example, less than 2% of Speedo's annual sales now come from its teeny men's swimsuits. Speedo's new-and-improved image, as Speedo North America President Sheree Waterson sees it, is, in a word: speed. Her strategy is not only about revamping an outdated image, but appealing to a new generation of young sports enthusiasts who value quality and performance every bit as much as fashion. Never mind that Speedo is going up against the likes of Nike and Adidas. There's lots of money to be made in high-performance gear. In other words, costly synthetics. It's all about "breathability" and "moisture management" and especially "drag reduction." That's why the FSII ice suit uses a design that mimics a shark's skin, with dimples much like those on a golf ball. "The difference between a gold and silver medal at the Olympics will be hundredths of a second," says Flowers, the bobsledder. Regular consumers will buy into this kind of innovation, too. "People want to pay for something that is a badge of achievement," Waterson says. So long, leisurely beach scenes. Hello, extreme sports. It's no accident that Speedo has signed on hip young athletes to wear its brand. It has multi-medalist Phelps in its high-tech, FSII body-length swimsuit. It has gold-medalist swimmer and knock-out cover girl Amanda Beard in FSIIs, as well. And now it also has bobsledder Flowers, who in 2002 was the first African-American to win a gold medal in any Winter Olympics. And that might be just the beginning. Using technologies similar to those it used to create the FSII swimsuit line, the company is working on high-performance apparel for everything from biking to beach volleyball to skiing to speed skating. All this from a swimsuit maker whose parent company, Warnaco, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2001, and emerged from it in early 2003. Speedo ranks as the 11th-largest athletic apparel brand globally, says Horan, of Sporting Goods Intelligence. This move into performance speed gear across sports could boost that ranking, he says. It's simple, says Stu Isaac, senior vice president of team sales and marketing at Speedo. "People not only want to have the confidence that what they wear will perform, but that they'll look great in it."