The shave down

The Flaw

In 1952 Jon had a disappointing Australian National Championship. Third in the mile and a poor timing in 400m meant he was among those who missed the Helsinki Games. The strokes were fine and so was the endurance but Jon knew there was something missing

The Eureka Moment

The Hendricks household had a local sailing champ as a neighbour, whom Clyde could see almost every evening spending hours smoothening his hull. The reason: When the boat was 8216;8216;ghosting8217;8217; 8212; traveling at about 2.5 mph, the speed of a long-distance swimmer 8212; a smooth hull made a huge difference in speed. Clyde asked his son to shave his chest, to reduce friction in the water

The trademark

Researchers found out that shaved swimmers had an edge of about one to two seconds over others. Jon8217;s clean look was copied by the Aussie squad first and later by the world

The result

He chipped the Aussie 110-yard mark by one second and went on to become the fastest swimmer in the Melbourne Olympics. With two golds he led the Australian charge in the swimming pool

The legacy

No Olympic medallist since 1960 has swum without shaving down. Today, they also use the full-body suits 8212; but only over shaved torsos

8212; Sandeep Dwivedi

Source: Eureka: How Innovation Changes the Olympic Games by John Naber