How Important a Helmet Can Be: The Omega Helmet

The Omega helmet has been tested extensively, with the most striking result being that it provides almost a second of time gain over 1500 meters. But more importantly, in various conditions, from long-track sprinting to marathon and team pursuit, the helmet outperforms all current competitors on the market. The Japanese pursuit team has already understood this and, after extensive testing, is using the Omega during the team pursuit.

Helmet development with KNSB and NOC-NSF

Since 2019, Cadomotus, together with scientists from the KNSB and the NOC-NSF, has been working to develop the fastest possible speed skating helmet to take speed skating to an even higher level. Existing helmets on the market were used as a benchmark, but no example could beat the Omega.

Image 1: The Dutch team with the orange Omega helmet during the World Cup Team Sprint in Poland 2019.

Testing in sprint and endurance positions

To properly test a helmet, you have to start from multiple positions. For a speed skating helmet, two positions are important. In the endurance position, the skater arches their back slightly and is therefore slightly higher relative to the ice. In the sprint position, the back is almost straight and the skater sits much deeper. To illustrate: the differences between speed skating helmets can then amount to up to 12 watts, which is 3% of the total power. In terms of time, this means that the Omega is almost a second faster over 1500 meters.

Table 1: Results of the wind tunnel tests conducted at TU Delft in February 2020. The results show the differences between the speed skating helmets that were available on the market at that time.

The table below shows the results of the wind tunnel tests at TU/e. During this test, two Cadomotus helmets and two Viking helmets were compared. The measured difference in this test is very small, but this only concerns one specific position. In contrast to the tests at TU Delft, where multiple positions and multiple helmet positions were measured.

Table 2: Results of the wind tunnel test conducted at TU Eindhoven in August 2021. The test included two Viking helmets and two Cadomotus helmets, including the Omega (Cadomotus1).

Omega the fastest helmet for long distance and sprint

This is important for a test, because the airflows can differ considerably per position. So you could develop a separate helmet for each position. And indeed, tests in the wind tunnels of both TU Delft and TU Eindhoven show that there are helmets that score well in the sprint position and helmets that score well in the endurance position.

 Interestingly, the Cadomotus Omega helmet escapes this: the helmet already comes out on top in both separate tests. If you then create a combined ranking, the Omega leaves all the competition far behind. In short, it is a extensively tested helmet that consistently outperforms all other helmets in test measurements.

The Japanese national speed skating team is well aware of this and has therefore chosen the Omega for the team pursuit. The team did not make this decision lightly and decided after extensive testing in the wind tunnel for season '21/22 to go with the fastest helmet: the Omega. The Dutch team, despite tests showing that the Omega is faster, has decided to forego the helmet.

Innovation determines the future

Cadomotus has set itself the goal of developing a speed skating helmet that not only contributes to the safety of the skater but also gives them an aerodynamic advantage. Cadomotus is supported in this by the ISU. With the design of the Chronos, the step is smaller to also wear a helmet on individual skating distances. For more than a year and a half, scientists from the NOC-NSF, the KNSB and TU Delft have been working together to create an even faster speed skating helmet for the team pursuit. They succeeded. 

The Chronos ensures better guidance of the airflow over the skater's back, thereby reducing overall resistance. Measurements at TU Delft show that a prototype of the new Cadomotus Chronos is incredibly fast and provides an additional 0.47 seconds of time gain compared to the Omega helmet, measured over 1500 meters. The Chronos helmet will be launched next year.