Barry Bixler is a computational fluid dynamics expert. He spends most of his time designing jet engines for Honeywell. "Basically, I'm a rocket scientist," he said.
And he doesn't go near the water much. "My idea of swimming," the Phoenix resident said, "is a floating chair with two cup holders."
Despite his landlubber habits, Bixler is an important player in the competition to develop and produce high-technology swimsuits that will help elite swimmers shave precious milliseconds off their times in competition.
Inspired by his daughter's swimming career, Bixler put his scientific knowledge to work as a consultant for Speedo, the sportswear company that dominates the lucrative market for performance swimwear.
Speedo and TYR, a privately held company based in Huntington Beach, have spent millions of dollars on research and testing of suits, goggles and caps to help Olympic swimmers realize their gold-medal dreams.
Each company produced high-tech suits that stirred controversy before the Sydney Olympics, and each has come up with a next-generation model that swimmers are trying out as they prepare for the Athens Games.
The suits produced before Sydney were disdained until swimmers wearing them began recording remarkably fast times.
USA Swimming, saying the suits weren't widely enough available, threatened to ban them at the 2000 Olympic trials even though they'd been approved by FINA, the sport's international governing body.
Speedo, which reportedly had trouble producing the suits, didn't fight the ban. But TYR filed a grievance contending that Speedo had used its dominant position to block the suits' use. After TYR and Adidas promised to supply suits upon request, USA Swimming backed down and allowed swimmers to wear the revolutionary suits.
"There's a whole gray area of what constitutes a swimsuit or a bike helmet or a tennis racket," Bixler said. "We've had wooden tennis rackets and fiberglass and now composite. We've had Speedo suits that were the little skimpy ones and full body. It's a gray area, but it seems more sports are allowing for these advances."
The body-hugging models worn in 2000, Speedo's Fastskin and TYR's Aquapel, provided extensive coverage, in contrast to the men's tiny trunks and women's thin tank suits.
Speedo says 83% of Sydney swimming medalists wore its suits; TYR cites the accomplishments of its sponsored athletes: two silver medals won by Slovakia's Martina Moravcova, two golds by Ukraine's Yana Klochkova and a silver by Erik Vendt of the United States.
