Established in 1999 and based in Cambridge, England, Innovia Technology specialises in breakthrough innovation and new business development for leading companies such as Arena, Procter & Gamble, Shell, Boeing, Ford, Pepsi and Kraft. Working at the front end of innovation, the company’s highly qualified and diverse teams integrate the best thinking in technology, design, consumer insight and manufacturing to create exciting new concepts that can be brought to market efficiently. Innovia’s first engagement with Arena started in 2008 on the Powerskin X-Glide project, where the company played a key role in helping design a breakthrough product. For the Powerskin Carbon-Pro initiative, the Innovia team identified actionable technical benefits, demonstrating how the garment provides support without detracting from the swimmer’s mobility. Innovia Technology www.innoviatech.com Kintetech Labs, a division of Tessitura Taiana, produces high-performance technical fabrics that help the human body perform at its best when engaged in high-level sports activities. The Lab’s modus operandi is based on a culture of research, constant experimentation, and above all, physical tests to offer athletes a tool that can optimize sporting performance. Lab chief Matteo Taiana has personally been working with Arena for over five years, collaborating on three prior generations of the Powerskin family before taking on the Carbon-Pro project. The rigidity of carbon provided its own set of challenges, and the final result was achieved after several rounds of trial and error, as well as exhaustive testing. Kinetech www.kinetechlab.com Professor Giorgio Gatta of the University of Bologna’s Faculty of Exercise and Sport Sciences first started collaborating with Arena after the Beijing Olympics in order to do research on the company’s full-body swimsuits of the time. A series of meetings between the two parties established a mutual interest in the continuous exchange of knowledge, which over the years has turned into a partnership of close collaboration. The University’s Arena-related research is based primarily on the effects of water resistance, and ultimately the drag that a swimmer experiences in the water. Using the impressive facilities at Bologna’s extensive Record Sports Centre, special software analyzes films of swimmers in motion in order to determine the effect of drag on body position, while muscular effects are assessed through the measurement of electric currents from active muscles, lactic acid production, and oxygen consumption. In this way the performance levels of different swimsuits can be compared, and the effects of Arena’s technological developments determined. University of Bologna Facoltà di Scienze Motorie Current: Dipartimento di Embriologia e Biologia Applicata, Bologna Future: Dipartimento di Scienze per la qualità della vita, Rimini www.sm.unibo.it www.dieba.unibo.it Since its establishment in 1961, Macpi spa Pressing Division has specialized in the production of pressing machinery for the Clothing Industry. Over the course of its history, the company has contributed significantly to the development of pressing techniques, revolutionizing and constantly improving one of the most complicated stages of garment production. One of Macpi’s earliest innovations was the design of the first continuous fusing machine for jackets. Macpi was at the forefront of the emergence of seamless garments in the first decade of the 21st century, and developed industry-leading expertise in the bonding process. It has continued to maintain its leadership role in the field through its hi-tech line of bonding machines. These bonding processes have become central to the design and effectiveness of the Powerskin Carbon range of swimsuits. Macpi spa Pressing Division www.macpi.com Biomechanics Professor Redha Taiar of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne first started working with Arena and textile maestro Michel Joseph in 1994, at a time when the company was sponsoring legendary Russian swimmer Alexander Popov. Now in its eighteenth year, Professor Taiar’s continuing work with Arena has travelled the full gamut of swimsuit technology developments over that period, and there is arguably noone outside Arena that knows its technology and products as well as he does. While Professor Taiar participates on several aspects of Arena’s new projects, his most focused work takes place at the Berlin High Performance Olympic Centre’s Flume, a specially constructed facility that directs water through a narrow channel. Here data taken from athletes swimming in the Flume is analyzed and interpreted, providing important information on the influence that different swimsuits have on key data such as body position, stability, and drag. Professor Taiar’s 20 years of experience working with world class athletes provides further unique insight into the interpretation of results and proposal of adjustments. University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne UFR Sciences et Techniques des Activités Physiques et Sportives (STAPS) www.univ-reims.fr www.redha-taiar.com