Babies of U.S. Olympic Athletes Among First to Get New High Performance Diaper - Pampers(R) Cruisers With Dry Max

CINCINNATI, Jan. 18, 2010  /PRNewswire/ -- Every baby is a champion in play, and to celebrate the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Pampers® Diapers has partnered with Team USA to introduce new Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max, the brand's new high performance diapers sure to earn gold with world-class "players" – babies.    

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The babies of Team USA athletes will be equipped with the new Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max as they head to Vancouver.  In honor of these athletes and their families, Pampers has created specially-branded Team USA diapers with the Dry Max technology.  Although these limited-edition Team USA diapers will not be for sale, parents all across the country can buy Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max for their best players in the world in March.  In the meantime, parents can request a free sample three-pack of the new Cruisers diaper on Pampers.com starting February 12, the day of the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.  If this sample includes a Team USA diaper (they will be randomly inserted in select sample packs), their baby will win a year's supply of Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max.

To bring to life the incredible passion, endurance and ability babies demonstrate daily in the sport of play, Pampers Diapers has directly teamed with two world-class athlete families who are among the first to receive the special-edition Team USA diapers: Olympic gold medal speedskater Chad Hedrick and his family, and skeleton (forward-facing luge) World Champion and Olympic Hopeful Noelle Pikus-Pace and her family.   These athlete families will be sharing their Vancouver experiences from their babies' point of view throughout the Olympic Winter Games via photos and videos on Pampers.com.

"For many athletes, bringing home an Olympic medal is not just their dream, it's a shared dream of their entire family," said Jodi Allen, Vice President of North America Baby Care at Procter & Gamble including Pampers Diapers. "We are so proud to partner with these world-class athlete families, who are also parenting inspirations by training and succeeding while raising young, active children. We could not think of a more appropriate event than the Olympic Winter Games to celebrate babies as the world's greatest players and introduce our new high-performance gear – Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max."  

Babies' passion and dedication to play demonstrates that they are some of the best players in the world.  Did you know that a cruising baby in one day can take as many steps as a marathon runner in a race(2) and a nine-month old baby can crawl up to 400 meters in 20 minutes(3)? It's this active play that continually inspires the Pampers brand, and that's why moms and dads are encouraged to log on to Pampers.com beginning February 12 to join in celebrating the development of their own best players. Parents will have the ability to upload a video of their baby crawling from left to right, and randomly selected videos will be compiled into a Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max "Baby Relay" commercial which will air during closing day of the Olympic Winter Games, giving babies a chance to showcase their own playful ability in the same forum as the most elite athletes.

"Pampers is delighted to give all babies the chance to be awarded for their everyday medal-worthy performances," Allen said. "The technology incorporated into new Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max makes them 20 percent thinner than before and our driest diaper ever, providing game-changing improvements to babies in terms of performance and comfort, permitting them to be the best players they can be!"

Chad Hedrick – U.S. Olympic Speedskater

A skater from the young age of 18 months, Hedrick today is as dedicated to his family as he is to his sport.

"It makes perfect sense for me to be talking about Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max since it is a performance diaper. As an athlete, I understand that wearing high performance gear can mean the difference between coming in first place or fifth. And as a parent, I look for high performance gear for my daughter, Hadley," Hedrick said.

With his unconventional technique and unique style, Hedrick quickly rose to the top of the speedskating world having won the 2004 all-around during the World Championships, and following it up by becoming the third U.S. winter Olympian to take three medals in a single Games, during the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino. A recent World Cup gold medal winner at the Calgary Olympic Oval and currently juggling fatherhood responsibilities, Hedrick is not only a winner on the ice, but also at home.

"With the Torino Games success in my rearview mirror, I've rekindled my passion for skating and am ready to make new memories and once again go for the gold at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games," Hedrick said.

Noelle Pikus-Pace – U.S. Olympic Hopeful

For Noelle Pikus-Pace, the road to the Olympic Winter Games will be far less of a fairy tale. Going into the 2006 season, Pikus-Pace was favored to win gold in the Olympic Winter Games in Torino, but a tragic accident during the U.S. Olympic Team Trials shattered that dream when she was hit by a runaway bobsled, leading her to suffer a compound fracture to her right leg. After a miraculous six-week recovery, Pikus-Pace made her comeback and went on to win the World Skeleton Championships by the largest margin in history. Furthering her accomplishments, in 2008, she became a proud mother to her daughter, Lacee.

"Winning a medal this year would go beyond a celebration all my own; it would truly be a win for my entire family who have been a significant source of strength and support for me," Pikus-Pace said. "We're all on this Olympic journey together, and we consider ourselves a team. We're delighted to include Pampers Diapers as part of that extended team and definitely plan to have some fun 'playing' along the way."

"In gearing up for competition, I always look for gear that's not only spirited, but more importantly, items that won't sacrifice my performance, and I want the same for my daughter," Pikus-Pace said. "The fact that Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max are smaller in size means that they'll also take up less space as we pack and head off together to Vancouver."

Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max – Biggest Innovation in 25 Years

Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers with Dry Max are the brand's new high performance diapers and the biggest innovation for the Pampers brand in the last 25 years. Pampers Diapers invented the Dry Max technology and applied it to the current Swaddlers and Cruisers core, which allows the diaper to be thinner than before. This game-changing diaper – Pampers' driest ever – helps lock wetness in for up to 12 hours and its less bulky design helps give flexibility and comfort – perfect for all of babies' play. The new diaper design also helps families reduce their impact on the environment by containing 10 percent less material weight.  In fact, if current North American Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers users switched to the new Pampers Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max diaper, they could together throw away the weight of 1 billion less diapers every three years (based on 08/09 volume for Swaddlers/Cruisers).  

Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers Diapers with Dry Max will be available at retail across the country beginning in March 2010. Product will be available at mass, discount, baby specialty, grocery stores and online retailers where Pampers products are sold, with the same retail pricing as the current Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers Diapers (pricing is at the sole discretion of the retailer).

For more information, please visit www.Pampers.com.

About Pampers® Diapers

Pampers is a trademark of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and the company's largest global brand and is the world's top-selling brand of baby diapers. Our business is inspired by babies and toddlers, created by Pampers.  For more information on Pampers diapers and the Pampers Parenting Network, visit www.Pampers.com.

About Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG)

Four billion times a day, P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world. The company has one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Pampers®, Tide®, Ariel®, Always®, Whisper®, Pantene®, Mach3®, Bounty®, Dawn®, Gain®, Pringles®, Charmin®, Downy®, Lenor®, Iams®, Crest®, Oral-B®, Duracell®, Olay®, Head & Shoulders®, Wella®, Gillette®, Braun® and Fusion®. The P&G community includes approximately 135,000 employees working in about 80 countries worldwide. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and in-depth information about P&G and its brands.

About the U.S. Olympic Committee:

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the sole entity in the United States whose mission involves training, entering and underwriting the full expenses for the U.S. teams in the Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American and Parapan American Games.  In addition to being the steward of the U.S. Olympic Movement, the USOC is the moving force for support of sports in the United States that are on the program of the Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American and Parapan American Games. Follow us on Twitter (@USOlympic) and to learn more about the USOC, go to Teamusa.org.

(1) Helps lock wetness in

(2) O’Malley, M. “Normalization of temporal-distance parameter in pediatric gait” J. Biomechanics 29,629-625, 1996

(3) Learning to Keep Balance. Karen Adolph, Dept. of Psychology, New York University

SOURCE Procter & Gamble