At this year’s Winter Olympics, which kick off today, it isn’t just the athletes who will be on display. A host of technological innovations are heading to Sochi, Russia, too. Almost every winter sport involves some kind of gear, but there are three particularly exciting innovations making a debut at the 2014 Olympics.

(Image: Under Armour)

Motion capture skate suit

Most people associate motion capture with animated blockbusters like Avatar. To make those films, actors are outfitted with special sensors designed to track their bodies at hundreds of frames per second. The information they gather is fed into a computer, where the human movements can be used to animate the body of an artificial character like a Na’vi princess.

But motion capture is also useful for sport, in particular for getting super-precise data on the movements of all kinds of athletes, from runners to high-jump skiers. For these Olympics though, the US speed skating team have used motion capture in a different way. Clothing makers Under Armour, based in Baltimore, Maryland, teamed up with engineers at US aerospace and defence firm Lockheed Martin and used the technique to build the skaters a better suit.


First, the team used motion capture to track Olympic-level speed skaters as they zipped around an ice rink. From the data collected, they built fibreglass mannequins in various poses that mimicked the ones adopted by the skaters. The team then dressed the mannequins in hundreds of different suits and put them through hundreds of hours of wind tunnel tests. This allowed them to examine how different materials and designs affected the air whipping past them.

Given the results, the team used moulded polyurethane shapes to block airflow at certain parts of the body, as well as a different material on the thighs that reduced friction. They also moved the zip and added tiny dimples to the back of the hood to make the suit more aerodynamic.

This isn’t Under Armour’s first experiment with motion capture – they have used it to make other products, including a line of sports bras.

Details about the final ski suit, named the Mach 39, have been carefully guarded – though images have been released, as shown above. US speed skaters will sport the suits for the first time in public during the upcoming races at Sochi, starting on Saturday at 3.30 pm local time.

Will the use of motion capture seal a win? Other teams are sure to have their own innovations – but historically, fractions of a second have made all the difference when it comes to speed skating.

(Image: Alexander Klein/AFP/Getty)

Nanotube skis

First discovered in 1991, carbon nanotubes are sheets of carbon atoms that roll up like chicken wire to form tiny tubes. Their unusual combination of lightness, flexibility and strength – the tubes are more difficult to break than diamond or steel – has led to promises of a host of futuristic gadgets, including carbon-based computers, underwater speakers and even an elevator to space.

While not making an appearance at Sochi, they may soon become part of the skis used by the US alpine team. The skiers will use the tubes to hold the layers of their skis together in order to steady them on rough terrain.

As skiers race over unexpected bumps in the snow, they can be slowed down by vibrations in the materials in their skis – like fibreglass and steel. The nanotubes spread out incoming energy, dampening any overall shakes from the terrain.

Carbon’s unusual blend of low weight and high strength make the nanotubes an ideal choice for sports equipment. “You can essentially come up with materials that you can abuse quite a bit without breaking down,” explains Sarbajit Banerjee, a materials chemist at the University of Buffalo in New York.

Carbon will also be the star of cutting-edge equipment used by the US bobsledders and lugers, who rebuilt their vehicles to include carbon fibre – which is similar to carbon nanotubes but has thicker threads. “We really saw carbon fibre as sort of the lynchpin to be able to open up a lot of opportunities from a performance perspective,” says Michael Scully, creative director at BMW DesignworksUSA, which is behind the bobsled redesign. Although carbon fibre has been used in a range of sports equipment and cars for a while, the bobsled fibre is made using a method that provides precise control over the density of the fibre. BMW originally developed the method for its electric car, the i3.

(Image: Ian Schemper/Omega)

Beat the speed of sound

Ready, set – bang – go! The crack of a starting pistol is the traditional start to any Olympic race. But it has been known for years that relying on pistols is unfair to athletes placed farther away from them. This year, a fairer, electronic gun – that is not limited by the speed of sound – will be the official start to the all speed skating events.

Official Olympic timekeeper Omega, based in Biel/Bienne Switzerland, introduced the gun for speed skating at the last winter games as a trial – at Sochi, it will be the standard for the sport. The gun was also used at the track cycling races in the London summer games.

When a timekeeper “fires” the bright-red electronic starter, a flash of light goes off. At the same time, a starting bang is played from an array of speakers behind the athletes. Everyone has the same opportunity to get going.

“Timekeeping is about confidence,” says Peter Hürzeler, head of Omega Timing. Athletes and referees need that extra assurance that everyone is setting off at the same time – even if it is a question of fractions of a second.

Using an electronic starter has some other advantages. For one thing, it can be programmed with extra functions: if someone gets off to a false start, the gun can play a special “false start” noise almost immediately, alerting competitors that the race has to be aborted. Another advantage is serendipitous: it has a decidedly non-gun-like shape, which makes it easier to take through airport security, says Omega.