Imagine you possessed the speed of a cheetah, could slide across ice as smoothly as a seal, jump over hurdles with the grace of a gazelle, and swim the 50-metre freestyle with the stealth skills of a shark. You could collect more gold medals than Michael Phelps!

While animals might not be able to compete in the Olympics, sharks are still leaving their mark in the pool, thanks to Speedo’s Fastskin FSII swimsuits.

Sharksuits: Giving athletes a fin-up

Unlike their fishy cousins, sharks don’t have a swim bladder, aka an air bladder, to help keep them upright and buoyant. The only way sharks can stay afloat is by constantly moving. That means that nature has perfectly designed them to silently slice through the water at impressive speeds.

Here’s how it works: A shark’s skin is covered in small teeth, otherwise known as dermal denticles. They’re arranged in a pattern that keeps water flowing smoothly over the shark’s body. Each “tooth,” or denticle, is made up of tiny raised ridges that help to reduce turbulence as the shark cuts through the water. They all point backward, so a shark would feel smooth if you dared to stroke it from head to tail, but the last thing you’d want to do is rub a shark the wrong way (no pun intended)!

Inspired by the shark’s awesome architecture, the people at Speedo decided to fashion a shark-tastic swimsuit with a little help from some scientists at the Natural History Museum in London, England. The result is a body suit that mimics the frictionless ease of nature's most fearsome marine mastermind.

Its inventors believe the costume will take fractions of a second off a swimmer's performance, making all the difference between winning and losing.

Did you know… In the 2008 Beijing Games, swimmers wearing Speedo's LZR shark-inspired swimsuits accounted for 23 of the 25 broken world records?

So what does all this mean? Uh, that sharks are even more awesome than you thought! Unfortunately, these toothy top predators are actually endangered – with an estimated 100 million sharks being killed for their fins every year! To help things go a little more swimmingly for sharks, here are some actions YOU can take:

• Before you accidentally eat an endangered ocean dweller, check this Canada Seafood Guide to make sure your fishy meal’s got the stamp of approval.
• In January 2009, a major grocery chain started selling shark meat, but stopped after lots of people complained. As a consumer you have a lot of power, so don’t be afraid to use it!