Spyder Shares Detail On Tech’ In USST Speed Suit

Spyder, the world’s most recognizable and trusted outdoor sportswear brand, has unveiled the Velocity18 speed suit to be worn by the U.S. Ski Team in competition during the 2018 Games and through the remainder of the World Cup season.

What appears on TV as a colorful Spandex suit is in fact a masterpiece of human collaboration, engineering, innovation and research that will be on display at the U.S. Men’s and Women’s Alpine team races this season.

“The U.S. Ski Team is a major passion point for the Spyder brand,” says Brady Collings, VP of Marketing for Spyder. “Every hundredth of a second counts in winning a race and we’ve worked in painstaking detail to ensure every technical advancement is employed, every athlete is body mapped with perfect precision, and every last aspect of design and development of our race suits are thoughtfully considered.”

The precision and detail that come together in the new suit, called Velocity18, is the result of Spyder’s knowledge and experience gained over almost three decades as the exclusive apparel partner of the U.S Ski Team. Research for the Velocity18 began last April, and since then, the Spyder team has completed almost a dozen wind tunnel tests and on-snow trials, tested on multiple athletes in various tuck positions and worked through over 50 prototypes using various fabric combinations and constructions on the way to perfecting the new speed suit.

In 1994 Spyder was granted a patent on SpeedWyre, a technology that enhanced race suit performance. A “trip wire” formed by a narrow seam on the surface of the legs and arms streamlined the surrounding air flow, significantly reducing wind drag by up to 40% in laboratory tests. US Ski Team members wearing Spyder suits enhanced with SPEEDWYRE captured gold, bronze and fifth place in world championships over the next two years, including two World Downhill Championships by Hilary Lindh and Picabo Street. The FIS banned SpeedWyre in 1997, claiming that it gave skiers an unfair advantage.

“The Spyder Boulder team conducted months of research and testing with a world-class team of collaborators, which resulted in a made to measure speed suit that delivers on the brand promise to elevate the performance of each athlete,” said Natasha Fishman, EVP of Marketing of Spyder at Authentic Brands Group, the owner of the Spyder brand.

Spyder’s world-class team of collaborators included Troy Taylor, High Performance Director for U.S. Ski and Snowboard, TJ Lanning, retired U.S. Ski Team athlete, the aerodynamics and engineering knowledge of Toyota, a U.S. Ski Team sponsor, and the San Diego Wind Tunnel.

“Materials and aerodynamics are speed and sport specific,” says Troy Taylor, who took part in every step of the suit’s development. “In skiing, drag at 60 to 80 miles per hour in a tuck is different than 40 to 50 in a turn, and the fastest material at one speed may not be the fastest at another speed,” he says. “The wind tunnel tests looked positive, and I expect this suit to help us be as competitive as possible.”

Each athlete’s suit is micro-adjusted and made to measure, down to the millimeter and right up to race time. Body position and type, seams, cut, mobility, and combinations of fabric, among other things, are all taken into consideration when building individual suits. To ensure optimum performance for our U.S. Ski Team athletes, the Velocity18 is a one-race-only suit. Used suits will be transitioned to training suits and handed down to junior development programs.

Spyder has elevated their Speed Suits to a new level with the Velocity18 and the performance results are exceeding expectations. Spyder is committed to innovation in skiing and ski racing performance and this suit is another step to ensuring all athletes are given the opportunity to perform at their greatest potential.

Spyder will manufacture and distribute a limited number of speed suits inspired by those developed for the U.S. Ski Team.