Speedo was just a little possessed in their pursuit of this suit. They went to NASA, using one of its wind tunnels to test surface drag on five dozen different fabrics. They also ran tests in a liquid environment using a high precision flume, performed a body analysis of hundreds of world class athletes and even crunched the numbers with a computation fluid dynamics analysis to see where on a swimmer's body drag was at its worst.

Libby Trickett of Australia is a current world record holder in three individual women's short course events: 50m and 100m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly. She also holds two world relay titles, and is an Olympic gold medallist in the women's 4 x 100m Freestyle. She said wearing the Speedo suit was "like swimming downhill."

As you might imagine, when the Speedo suit began to crush records other manufacturers cried foul. But the suits were legal. No secret stays secret for long. Other manufacturers were immediately on Speedo's heels with suits that are comparably fast. And within the last few weeks most of the competitors competing suits were approved for the games.

If you're looking to trade up to a Speedo LZR Racer, be prepared to spend $550. In return you'll get a suit that's not stitched together. Instead it's held together by ultrasonically bonded seams. It's as close to a second skin as you'll ever get and based on record times, the fastest swimsuit ever made.