English middle-distance runner Keely Hodgkinson set a new meet record when she won the 800 meters at the all-female Athlos track meet in London on September 18, and she did it wearing a futuristic full-length speed suit with a hood, open back, and opening for a ponytail.
Hodgkinson won the event with a time of 1 minute 56.4 seconds. It’s a punishing, all-out race over two full laps that requires a mix of speed and endurance; she took the inside lane during the first lap and pulled away from the pack beginning in the final backstretch and kept gaining. She finished a full two seconds faster than the runner-up.
It was a dominating performance on its own, setting a stadium record by nearly seven seconds, and the getup, a one-of-one speed suit designed by Nike in partnership with Hodgkinson, looked similarly ahead of the pack. As the announcer said during the race, Hodgkinson was “looking like a superhero.”
The custom suit took roughly a year to materialize, Hodgkinson said after the race. It has openings at the underarms and back for thermo-regulation, and details like minimal seams and no closures to reduce air resistance. The delta-shape, 3D-printed devices on the suit are designed to reduce drag by creating vortices that Nike says force fast-moving air around the body to mix with and attach to slow-moving air trapped against it.
It’s mostly designed to be aerodynamic, though the ponytail opening in the hood is the exception. That’s just for looks and confidence.
“The science was like, technically with the air drag you’re slower with your hair out,” she said after the race, “But I was like, ‘That’s a nonnegotiable. My hair is staying out.’”
Hodgkinson isn’t the first runner to wear a speed suit in international competition. Australian Cathy Freeman won the 400 meters at the 2000 Olympics wearing a full-body Nike Swift Suit.
Hodgkinson herself noted that her suit “wasn’t something that we haven’t seen before,” but that she’d like to see more of them.
The suit was handcrafted by a Nike team primarily within the LeBron James Innovation Center at the Philip H. Knight Campus, Nike’s world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. The sportswear brand says it’s “a couture-level perfect fit” and “like a second skin but faster.”
During the race Hodgkinson also donned Nike Vision Airelon Force E sunglasses and Nike Victory Elite Spikes. The shoes feature a carbon fiber top plate, a carbon outsole plate, and a lightweight yarn upper.
With its ponytail opening, Hodgkinson’s suit wasn’t entirely efficient, but it did strike a balance of what she calls “look good, feel good,” proving that sometimes maximizing design matters less than comfort and confidence.
“It’s a mixture of fashion and speed and science all coming together,” she said.