The 2026 Winter Olympics have captured global attention as athletes push physical limits through strength, endurance, and determination. What spectators don’t see, however, are the entrepreneurs and engineers behind the scenes transforming ideas into real, manufacturable products that help athletes perform at their greatest potential. The Olympics are not just a proving ground for athletes, but also the ultimate test of product design.
Equipment innovation has quietly transformed modern sports. From aerodynamic alpine racing suits designed to reduce drag, to precision-manufactured carbon fiber hockey sticks engineered for optimal energy transfer, to thermoformed boots molded to match an athlete’s exact foot anatomy—these advancements represent just a fraction of the technology enabling competitors to perform on the world stage.
The Winter Games represent the pinnacle of athletic performance, yet not every product athletes rely on is engineered to that same standard. While sports equipment has become increasingly precise and customizable, many athletes still depend on gear that wasn’t intentionally designed to amplify their strengths or mitigate the limitations caused by poor fit. One example is the limitation of women’s hockey equipment. Much of the gear was originally designed around male body specifications, leaving women with fewer purpose-built protective options—sometimes compromising both performance and safety. Even at the Olympic level, athletes often modify their equipment or combine men’s and women’s gear to compensate for gaps in intentional design.
These gaps presented an opportunity for entrepreneurs dedicated to improving both performance and protection in women’s hockey. Polar Athletics, an early-stage startup and first-place winner of the New York Business Plan Competition’s Products & Hardware category, is taking on that challenge by developing accessible and customizable hockey equipment designed specifically for girls and women. When protective gear does not properly align with an athlete’s body proportions, natural movement can be restricted, pressure points may develop, and athletes often compensate in ways that affect both performance and injury risk. Polar Athletics illustrates how sustained innovation in design and manufacturing supports athletes by anatomically tailoring hockey gear for fit, mobility, and protection meeting the demands of world-class play.
Just as equipment tailored to the athlete sharpens performance, Olympic competition demands fueling strategies that sustain peak output across multi-stage events. Recognizing that most sports nutrition products have been created to cater to male physiology, Levelle Nutrition, a past FuzeHub Commercialization Competition winner, develops energy purées and protein powders formulated specifically for women’s metabolic and hormonal needs. Designed to support sustained energy and more stable recovery, Levelle’s products reflect the growing recognition that fueling strategies must evolve alongside the increasing demands of elite and Olympic-level competition. When races are decided by seconds and recovery windows are narrow, nutrition becomes as critical as the equipment athletes rely on.
As the Winter Games unfold, the world is witnessing the culmination of years of product development and refinement—both in the equipment athletes rely on and the technology that fuels their performance. Through programs like the FuzeHub Commercialization Competition and connections to New York’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem, companies like Polar Athletics and Levelle are working to close gaps exposed at the highest level of competition, ensuring that women are not limited by designs that were never built with them in mind. Olympic excellence is not just a test of strength and skill, but of the engineering decisions made long before athletes step onto the world stage.