“Since this is a bumper year for sport, I want you lazy lot to
do something on the science and myths in sports” came the
terrifying words from the Editor. Not the Science Lite team’s
favourite topic – unless it involves a few alcoholic beverages
down the pub while watching the latest match, but actually some
of the things we found out were quite interesting. Did you know
that swimmers shave their body hair because they think it makes
them faster, but cyclists do it to make wounds easier to clean?
We’ve always thought that there was something a bit strange
about grown men shaving their legs but it turns out there is
some benefit in the practice. Swimmers first shaved off their
body hair at the 1956 Australian Olympics, and in 1989 a study
published in Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise showed
that it does indeed reduce drag. It compared nine swimmers who
shaved their arms, legs and exposed trunk against nine swimmers
who didn’t – removing hair significantly reduced rate of
velocity decay during glide u