Fiona Fairhurst facts for kids

Fiona Fairhurst, born in 1971, is a brilliant inventor. She is famous for designing the Speedo Fastskin swimsuit. This special swimsuit helped many swimmers win races and break records.

Fiona was a competitive swimmer when she was a child. This gave her a great understanding of swimming. She studied textile technology at the University of Huddersfield. She also studied at Leeds University and Central St Martins in London. Before working on the Fastskin, she was a Product Manager for Research and Development at Speedo.

Creating the Fastskin Suit

Fiona Fairhurst and her team at Speedo wanted to create a swimsuit that would make swimmers faster. In professional swimming, even tiny fractions of a second can decide who wins. Their main goal was to find a material and design that would reduce how much a swimmer's skin drags in the water.

Learning from Sharks

Fiona and her team looked at different animals that move easily through water. They found hydrodynamic animals very interesting. In the end, they focused on sharks. Sharks have special ridges on their skin called denticles. These ridges help sharks glide smoothly through water.

Speedo then built a swimsuit that copied the surface of shark skin. The material had patterns that looked like the ridges on a shark's skin. This design helped swimmers move through the water with less resistance.

Impact on Swimming

The Speedo Fastskin suit was first used at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. It was a huge success! Swimmers wearing the Fastskin suit won 83% of all the medals. Also, 13 out of 15 world records were broken by swimmers wearing this new suit. The Fastskin suit became known as a "silver bullet" in professional swimming. It helped many athletes win titles and Olympic medals.

See also

In Spanish: Fiona Fairhurst para niños