Advanced materials are pushing the boundaries of sporting performance
A fortnight ago, Dom Parsons won Great Britain’s first medal of the Winter Olympics as a 100-1 outsider in the skeleton. Rivals were incensed, pointing to an alleged unfair advantage given by the aerodynamic skinsuits worn by British athletes.
But the real advantage might have been underneath Parson’s sled. Over the last four years, since finishing 10th at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, he’s been working with Kristan Bromley, a four-time Olympian who took an unusual route into the skeleton, where athletes must sled down a course in the fastest time possible.
Bromley started out as a materials scientist at BAE System, helping design better equipment for the Winter Olympic athletes, before becoming one himself. Now, he’s one of the co-founders, with his brother, of Bromley Sports – an equipment company using cutting edge technology to improve performances.
In the skeleton, fine margins matter. Parsons won bronze – two hundredths of a second quicker, it would have been silver, three hundredths of a second slower, and he he would have finished fourth and out of the medals. The aim of the four year programme was to gain one or two tenths a second over the course of a one mile run, which equates to a 2-3% change in drag.
“It’s very small differences down the track,” says Bromley. “There’s a lot of consistency in our sport because you can’t create any energy from the run. You need to create efficiencies in areas that you’ve not explored before, and small changes can add up.”
Advanced engineering
In 2016, Bromley Sports started working with engineering company Versarien plc (LON:VRS) to incorporate graphene into their products, including custom prototype ‘pans’ for three athletes at the PyeongChang games – Parsons, Kimberley Bos from the Netherlands and Alexander Hanssen from Norway.
“Utilising our graphene enhanced carbon fibre technology Bromley have been able to make significant enhancements to their already world-leading sleds,” said Versarien CEO Neil Ricketts when announcing the results of the partnership in January. “Elite sport is a clear and immediate showcase for the benefits of using our graphene technology.”
