The female Japanese volleyball team has a great track record in international events. The men however, have not performed so well and it has been 16 years since they last qualified for an Olympic games.

Their last chance to qualify for the Beijing Olympics will be to finish on top of an eight team Asian competition. This time they have a new secret weapon ultra-light inner underwear or “super undies” as the Mainichi news is calling them.

“Volleyball uniforms up until now have been made of a woven woolen material. But the uniforms the team is wearing for this event are made of a thinner, lighter material that makes the clothes 20 percent lighter than previous outfits,” a spokesman for Asics, the sportswear manufacturer that produced the gear, tells Atsutoshi Yamada writing for Sunday Mainichi.

We will know next week if the super undies made any difference.