In early December, Bob Joncas, the high-performance manager for the Canadian Snowboard Federation, boarded a jet for Switzerland. In the cargo hold, rolled into a heavy bag, was the result of three years of hush-hush research, development and testing. Joncas was bound for a mountainside factory in Braunwald to deliver a secret weapon of sorts, one of dozens of clandestine products and tactics that Canadian athletes will deploy in February at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.

Joncas presented the bag’s contents to Hansjürg Kessler, considered by many elite athletes as the world’s best custom snowboard maker. Kessler was at work on a special Olympic order for the Canadian national team—tailored-to-measure boards with at least two significant modifications from any he has ever made. One was a super low-friction base, to be applied to the bottom of the boards from a 30-m roll of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene that Joncas carried from Canada. The other is a composite plate for bindings that is so revolutionary Canada’s boarders have hidden it under duct tape and MACtac during their frequent appearances on World Cup podiums this winter.

The base, which alpine boarders won’t use until Games time, cuts friction by 15 to 20 per cent compared to commercially available products, its creators say. “Small differences can be huge,” says Christos Stamboulides, the University of British Columbia researcher who formulated the product. Less friction equals more speed, and perhaps a podium finish, says project supervisor Savvas Hatzikiriakos, a specialist in fluid mechanics and friction. “In the last Olympics, Canada won a lot of fourth places,” he says. “Nobody remembers the fourth-place athletes.”

That quest for those small differences is what drives the aptly named Top Secret project—a five-year, $8-million technological arms race unprecedented in Canadian sport history. Researchers across the country have been breaking down the science of winter sport, looking for any edge in training, human performance and equipment. “To date, we’ve completed 55 projects, using 17 different universities and institutions,” says Todd Allinger, the Vancouver-based biomechanist who manages the program. “I think it’s been very successful.” Now, a month from the Olympic opening ceremonies, Maclean’s takes an exclusive inside look.

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