A textile journey to Olympic Gold

It was a very proud moment for UCMTF, the association of the French tex—tile equipment manufacturers, when Kristian Blummenfelt claimed the Men’s Triathlon Gold Medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on 26 May 2021.

Th e Norwegian completed the course – swimming for 1.5 kilometres, cy—cling for 40 kilometres and running a further 10 kilometres – in just 1 hour, 43 minutes and 4 seconds. And for the duration he wore a highly technical outf it tailored to the demands of the event.

Th e Skinsuit was designed by the Norwegian company Trimtex, a special—ist in customised sportswear for triathlons, as well as for running, cycling, cross country skiing and many other extreme activities. Th e highly—technical all—in—one “tri—suits” of Trimtex have been developed to provide a perfect combina—tion of aerodynamics and optimal hydrodynamics.

Payen

Behind the scenes, the fabric for Kristian Blummenfelt’s latest tri—suit was designed and produced by Payen, a company based near Lyons in France. Founded in 1839, today Payen is a vertically integrated operation, from extruded polymer to technical f inished fabrics for the medical, military and sportwear markets. Its spe—cialisations include yarn texturing, covering, warping, weaving and f inishing.

Th e company’s commercially—available Pagastic is an elastane—covered poly—mer yarn with highly durable elastic properties. Payen has the in—house know—how,accumulated over many decades, to weave, dye and f inish bi—stretch warp and weft fabrics based on Pagastic. Th is can be a challenge, according to the company’s dye—ing specialist Manuel Andujar, because the two components do not react in the same way. “It is diffi cult enough when the elastane makes up 2—5% of the fabric, as in most sportwear garments,” he says, “but in the fabric used by Trimtex the elastane percentage is much higher.”

His commercial colleague, Yves Duchene, adds that for Trimtex, an exclusive fabric was designed, incorporating three new Payen f inished fabric technologies – AquaTech for the swimming stage, AeroTech to improve aerodynamic performance when cy—cling and running, and PhysioTech, designed to get the best physi—ological performance.

Alliance

To dye and f inish the fabric Payen is using a Rotora machine from Alliance Machine Textile, a UCMTF member company also based near Lyons.“Payen’s fabric for Trimtex is very light and deli—cate and to dye and apply the necessary f inishes to it, a very soft treatment is required,” says Alliance CEO David Godinaud. “Our Rotora is particularly well suited to this, because the fabric is rolled on a beam which rotates in the machine.Th e Rotora is also envi—ronmentally friendly, with a liquor ratio of around 1:3, regardless of the loading weight. Th e control and monitoring are continuous. It is in our DNA to work with partners like Payen and customise our equipment for them and that’s what we did in this case.”

“Service geeks”

In new performance fabric development, our members are in—creasingly becoming closer and closer partners to their customers in order to understand their needs, focus R&D on f inding solutions and off er state—of—the—art equipment and the best service.

French textile equipment manufacturers are R&D and service geeks and in general, as SMEs run by entrepreneurs, it is very easy for them to work with customers and go beyond usual business relationships. It’s worth remembering that Joseph—Marie Jacquard– the most well—known inventor of textile machinery – was him—self French.