Why do swimmers shave their bodies?
Why do swimmers shave their bodies? When a few tenths of a second can mean the difference between winning a gold medal and going home empty-handed, swimmers are willing to do drastic things. Reducing drag and anything that causes excessive resistance in the water is one essential step in competitive swimming. Companies even borrow ideas from NASA and sink millions of dollars into developing cutting-edge suit technology [source: Boyle]. But if you can’t afford a special NASA-designed swim suit, there are other ways to reduce drag. Today, most swimmers shave much of their body hair off before a big competition. The practice gained popularity after the 1956 Olympics, when Murray Rose and Jon Henricks came shaved and won gold medals for Australia [source:
