SwimOutlet, the web’s most popular swim shop, unveiled its ninth annual 2021 Tech Suit Review this week, the most widely-read swim tech suit review in the marketplace that dates back to 2013.
For the first time ever, the SwimOutlet Tech Suit Review has been compiled using an age group swim team with a total of 10 different swimmers wear-testing 12 & under compliant racing suits (U12) for both boys and girls among five different leading brands.
“With the new 12 & under race suit rule going into effect last fall and most of the top brands having unveiled their Tokyo Olympic suits already in 2019 and early 2020, we thought this was the perfect opportunity to work with select age group swimmers for a full wear-test and comprehensive review of 12 & under compliant suits,” said Jaime Benes, VP of Team Sales at SwimOutlet. “We think coaches, parents and swimmers of all ages will find these editorial reviews useful in their suit purchasing decisions.”
SwimOutlet worked alongside swimmers at Mariemont Aquatic Club in Cincinnati, Ohio, over a period of several weeks in January and February to compile the final reviews including fit-sessions, wear-testing and photo shoot. Each of the swimmers had been specially selected for the review project by submitting an essay of why they wanted to be part of the 2021 12 & Under SwimOutlet Tech Suit Review.
The review’s featured suits, all of which are compliant for 12 & under age group races under USA Swimming’s new rule, include (in alphabetical order):
“Once again we have assembled the best suits in their respective category and by having 10 young swimmers, test five suits at least two times each, we conducted over 100 wear-test sessions since mid-January,” added Benes.
Suits were reviewed, tested and scored 1-5 (1-Unsatisfactory; 2-Satisfactory; 3-Good; 4-Very Good; 5-Outstanding) across six different categories by the 10 swimmers including
Fit, Looks + Design, Comfort + Ease to Put On, Materials + Fabric, Compression and Overall Impressions.
The girl’s arena Powerskin ST 2.0 was the highest scoring suit of all 10 (male & female) suits tested, scoring a 4.67 overall average score across all categories out of a perfect 5. The suit also scored an average of 4.8 in the “Overall Impression” category and had a near perfect 4.9 rating in three categories related to Fit, Comfort and Materials & Fabric.
On the men’s side, the TYR Thresher Baja and Speedo Vanquisher jammers finished in a virtual-tie for the top scoring suit among the team swimmers, including identical scores of 4.3 in the “Overall Impression” category for boys jammers. TYR finished just a hair ahead of Speedo with a 4.06 overall boys scoring average to 4.05 for Speedo.
Mizuno’s new Stream Ace suit was highlighted by a 4.6 score for comfort among the women’s suit, the second highest score in that category across all 10 suits, male or female. The recently-launched FINIS Fuse Jr. finished with a solid compression score of 3.9 on the male side, the second-highest compression score among all of the boys jammers.
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Read the full 2021 SwimOutlet Tech Suit Review here: https://www.swimoutlet.com/
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Learn more about the new 12 & Under Tech Suit Rule at SwimOutlet
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See USA Swimming’s full list of 12 & Under Compliant Race Suits
For more information, visit www.swimoutlet.com, instagram.com/swimoutlet and facebook.com/swimoutlet.
Courtesy of SwimOutlet, a SwimSwam partner.