Superhero suit to change face of swimming

1 April 2010.
For immediate release

blueseventy has received a supreme court ruling today declaring that the swimming governing body's rules regarding suits has no legal grounds, and that all the potentially controversial suits may now be worn by swimmers competing on the world stage.

The ruling coincides with the new release of three new cutting edge designs from the New Zealand based swimming brand.

The DC, “Design Confidential”, range of swimskins have been announced with claims of incredible super powers, much like the suits names: The Hulk, The Super Suit, and the Spidery Suit.

The Hulk Suit, is designed to offer chemical assistance to the swimmer, through the power of anger. The suit uses nano technology to improve performance, triggered by hormones in the body produced when the person becomes angry, drastically increasing the power of the swimmer.

The Super Suit is developed with a small cape on the back, which acts as a wing like structure creating
lift in the water and allowing the swimmer to "fly”.

The Spider Suit uses a weave of web like tendrils around the body, vastly improving the explosive power of an athlete, enabling the swimmer to leap effortlessly off the blocks almost 10m into the pool.

blueseventy's director of genetic research, April Hoodwink, commented, “Already estimations indicate that the new law, and resulting suits, would see the old 2009 world records become obsolete within days.”

Ends
For more details, mail media@blueseventy.com

NeroTX Approved by NCAA

The NCAA has given the thumbs up to blueseventy’s neroTX swimskin, ensuring that swimmers can wear the suits at forthcoming Conference meets and the NCAA Championships. Furthermore, swimmers with a banned swimskin can trade it in for a 50% discount on a new neroTX suit.

The new suit features the very latest in modern textile fabric technology, making as much up to the minute technology as possible available to the swimmer.

CEO Steve Nicholls commented: “The body suit has been banished, but a new generation of suits is now ready to take their place. The neroTX has been extensively tested by scientists and swimmers. Whilst staying within FINAs latest guidelines, we’ve produced a super light weight, compressive, hydrophobic material that repels water effectively and drastically javascript:void(0)decreases drag.

“We’ve applied the same passion for design and innovation to the neroTX that turned the record breaking blueseventy nero into the top selling race suit in the world.”

The neroTX is made from a unique highly compressive, ultra low drag, water smart fabric. blueseventy's exclusive fabric is produced using a warp multifilament treated nylon, with an extremely thin yarn count. The entire neroTX range is ultrasonically welded, further eliminating the drag that’s created from traditionally sewn suits

Nicolls added: “We are committed to bringing innovation into swimming and have also developed a carbon fibre goggle that is lighter and faster than any other goggle we have tested. We’re constantly looking at technology from other sports that we can apply to the water to help swimmers go faster.”

The brand new Nero range will be available now. Swimmers with a 2009 nero swimskin are eligible for 50% off the price of a new suit and should visit www.blueseventy.com for more details of the unique buy back scheme.

1 June Update FINA approval process

We remain in the same situation as before and are not on the list. We continue to believe this is an oversight since we can now confirm that our suits passed all the tests that EPFL put them through. We will be in further contact with FINA and will have an update on the situation at 1pm PST weds.

FINA approval update May 21: what do I do with my nero

Thank you for your email in regard to your blueseventy swimskin. We understand your initial concern regarding the legality of competing in this currently and wish to assure you that we are working towards a win / win solution for all our loyal blueseventy customers. The most common question we have at the moment is “What does this mean for me, I just bought a nero suit, is it now useless”

Our initial contact with FINA has been to immediately over turn the decision as it is based on factually inaccurate interpretations of their own laws.  Please see our website for more information regarding this, or visit Steve Nicholls, Our CEO’s blog, details below

Regarding the legality of your suit:

Currently there are several points that need clarification:

1. Dubai charter was set up to limit suit use for the ROME world championships. At this stage it is unclear whether the current rules will make suits illegal/ legal for any other events in 2009, or just ROME.
   
2.   We have already started sampling different ways to, at our cost voluntarily adjust a blueseventy nero suit to fit into FINAs new rules.  Our goal is to have a method that is quick, simple and something we can do to suits that have been purchased already. Currently FINa have requested we modify our suits because they "may trap air" and the lack of objective measures to quantify this effect is the major limiter on evaluating success/ failure of this modification.
   
3. We also have several straight forward alterations to forward production that will allow the escape of the possibly trapped air that has made our suits illegal. These are minor changes but again depend on what constitutes trapping air, and what constitutes air escaping.
   

Most importantly we’re thinking about what we can do for our customers, and people who own one of our suits, so please be patient keep your nero, a lot of countries are still letting swimmers use these suits until such time as they get clarification from FINA (for example USA swimming, US masters swimming). We’ll be updating information as regularly as we can, please see any of the below links for details:

www.blueseventy.com

http://www.thewaterisopen.blogspot.com/

www.blueseventysteve.blogspot.com

How will FINA rules affect blueseventy?

Napier New Zealand March 18th 2009

blueseventy’s CEO Steve Nicholls is confident that blueseventy will be able to adapt to any rulings that have come from the FINA Dubai charter.

“We’ve been involved, along with FINA and the other major manufacturers for the last few months in making sure that our products are meeting any restrictions, both in the immediate and long term future” said Nicholls.

Fina’s rules, issued in a two-stage process, will limit suits on thickness, buoyancy and other areas as of March 31st this year. This will be the standard until Jan 1st 2010, when the restrictions of phase two will come into effect.

“Phase one should not affect the legality of our current suits at all. All our in-house testing has shown that our current suits meet all of the phase one restrictions, including those relating to buoyancy. There has been a lot of incorrect information, and personal viewpoints ushered into the public arena, and we feel that some of these tests will help reduce the confusion that seems to be out there.”

“Phase two, will limit suits based on permeability, and dependant upon what that permeability ruling is, theoretically we may need to adjust our designs to make sure we retain a viable swimskin product beyond 2010. Since the FINA think tank in February, we’ve changed our design focus around those possible rulings and have some exciting concepts already in the pipeline.”

That’s for the future. For now blueseventy suits are fast becoming the suit of choice for swimmers globally, none more so than in the US college season, where blueseventy Nero suits took more State championships than any other brand. The current suits should remain in circulation until Jan 1st 2010 when, pending the new permeability rulings they may be phased out.

Commenting on the rulings, Global sales and marketing manager Dean Jackson said “We’re committed to being a long term partner of FINA, and swimming, that’s why we’ve invested back into the sport already, with sponsorship of US masters, and the FINA open water 10km Marathon series. This means that we are listening to coaches, athletes and others in order to ensure we are designing products that meet with the direction of the sport that FINA is charged with protecting. “

Olympic 10k swim

The Olympic 10k swimming event is coming up soon at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park. The women's event is on Wednesday, August 20th at 9am and the men's race is on Thursday, August 21st at 9am. So mark your calendars as it should be exciting indeed.

Pieter Van Den Hoogenband test

Our blueseventy pointzero & nero swim skins have seen quite a bit of open water time and have really proven themselves over and over so far. Many though wondered how well these super fast swim skins would do in the pool and chlorine. To answer this question we recently got a few decently well known swimmers like Pieter Van Den Hoogenband to test them out and wow what a success it was.


Peter Van Hoogenband in the new blueseventy nero comp at the Dutch National Championships.





Oh, for the record he swam 1.45.9 for 200m, his fastest time in six years. :-)