1. Olympic Materials

2. Ancient Olympic Games  Originally athletes wore no clothes.  Original shoes used leather or twine to attach the shoe to the foot. Bark was used for outsoles.  There was no difference in clothing or shoes used in different sports or weather conditions.  Materials used were natural materials, e.g. spears were made from wood and the discus from stone.

3. Modern Olympic Games  Clothes are worn!  A wide variety of materials are used. These include natural and synthetic materials.  List some natural and synthetic materials used in modern Olympic sports. Natural materialsSynthetic materials

4. Lycra  Invented by Joseph Shivers in 1959.  Specific properties include:  Stretchy - it can stretch to five times  its normal length without breaking  Lightweight  Soft  Not damaged by sunlight, sweat or detergents  Made of a chain of alternating flexible and rigid molecules  Used in a huge range of sports clothing.

5. Carbon fibre  Created in 1958 by Dr Roger Bacon.  Properties include:  Stiff  Lightweight  Easily broken in some directions  Used with other materials to create composites.

6. Carbon Fibre Carbon fibres in a plastic matrix forming a composite. The plastic is shown in yellow and the carbon fibres in grey. This is a scanning tunnelling microscope image.

7. Teflon  Invented accidentally by Roy Plunkett in 1938.  Teflon is a trade name for polytetrafluoroethene or PTFE.  It is a fluoropolymer which is slippery and unreactive.  Gore-Tex® has a plastic layer based on Teflon. Teflon-based top used in canoe slalom  Waterproof  Breathable

8. Materials and track cycling  Riding on an inclined track.  1 km and 4 km races.  The bikes are made from Kevlar and carbon-fibre composite. They have only one gear and no brakes

9. Track cycling bikes  Weight  1 / acceleration (weight is proportional to 1 divided by acceleration )  So for good acceleration it is really important to reduce the weight – but the bike wheel must still be rigid. Traditional sport bicycle wheelTrack cycling bicycle wheel <Need suitable image of bike wheel. I am having difficulty but did find this: http://e-catalog.rusbiz.com/product/59631.html  Weighs about 1 kgWeighs about 500 g  Foam filled solid wheels have good stiffness and are aerodynamic.

10. Swimming  In 2008 a new style of swim suit began to be used in competitions  It was made of polyurethane and the surface was based on shark skin  World records were broken quickly. Up until 2009 there were only two world records which were set before the new suits were introduced.  The new suits were banned from 1 st January 2010 and now suits have to be made from woven textiles as before.

11. Materials Science and the Olympics  What do you think?  Should Olympic athletes be allowed to take advantage of any improvements in technology?  Should they be limited to technology from the past?  Are World Records valid if they use technology not available in previous years?  Or should they all compete naked using only natural materials like in the ancient Olympics?