The 19-year-old New Zealand blueseventy triathlon wetsuit and long course swimsuit company added to its successful swim technology portfolio recently, as South African swimmer Cameron van den Burgh set three world records in FINA short course World Cup pool swimming events.
Wearing blueseventy's nero comp swimskin at a World Cup in Moscow, the 20-year-old phenom broke a six-year-old world record in the men’s short course 100-meter breaststroke by a margin of 0.59 of a second in a time of 56.88 seconds. Van den Burgh's performance marked the first world record by a pool athlete for blueseventy.
Subsequently in Moscow, van den Burgh broke the men's short course 50 meter breaststroke with a time of 26.08 seconds. Then, in a FINA short course World Cup swim meet in Stockholm three days later, van den Burgh broke his own 50 meter short course world record with a time of 25.94.
Van den Burgh is not sponsored by blueseventy, but his choice of the nero suit has been warmly embraced by the brand. "We are absolutely thrilled by Cameron's success and the nero comp," said blueseventy Global Sales and Marketing Manager Dean Jackson.
Just a year ago, blueseventy's swimskins were only seen on its traditional market – triathletes. But after a gold medal in the Olympic 10 kilometer open water swim via Maarten van der Weijden and van den Burgh's short course pool success, the brand is rapidly expanding its influence.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that blueseventy, an upstart David-size firm competing against the mighty swimsuit Goliath Speedo and other large manufacturers like Tyr, Mizuno and Descente/Arena, has made a dent at all in their recent foray into the pool racing world. Speedo and its LZR Racer suits happily brag about winning 23 of 25 world records at the Beijing Olympics, and 94 percent of all gold medals and 89 percent of all swimming medals at Beijing. But it is also true that Speedo paid vast amounts of money for the privilege of outfitting the best swimmers to compete in their brand.
It speaks volumes that the designers at the blueseventy, a small wetsuit company in New Zealand, could so quickly understand the hydrodynamics and arcane mysteries of fit and stitching in the world of pool swimming where hundredths of a second can mark the difference between a gold medal and failure.
But given the history of innovation in triathlon, it is a not so surprising. Originally tiny enterprises like Cervelo, which started its rise as a time trial favorite with triathletes, now stands as a giant in the bigger world of the Tour de France as well as a staple of ITU triathlon stars like Javier Gomez and Simon Whitfield.
And certainly, blueseventy has hardly abandoned its roots. Recently, Andy Potts emerged in second place from the Ironman Hawaii swim in a nero comp swimskin. At the recent Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Clearwater, overall winners Joanna Zeiger and Terenzo Bozzone wore blueseventy wetsuits. Zeiger emerged from the Gulf waters with the women's fastest swim split, and Andy Potts had the fastest men's split – while Bozzone was close behind.
Now, blueseventy isn't just a player in the niche triathlon swimwear market. Masters swimmers without a tri connection are asking their three-sport brethren where to find the neros that short course gold medalists are wearing because they are fast, not because they get a big fat contract.
