From the article: New 2009 Swimsuit Rules from FINA - Taking Back the Swimming Pool
The body suit issue the last year and 1/2 - the huge number of world records that certainly appear to be 99% due to swimsuits, not the swimmers in them, is making a farce out of the 2009 World Championships and swimming to a world record. Multiple world records each day and less than year after the Olympics - the only thing that could have changed that much is what did change, the swimsuits! It is not about the swimmer anymore, it is about the suit the swimmer chooses. Swimming is not an equipment sport, it is a human performance sport. Swimwear is equipment that is altering the outcome of races! What's Your Opinion?
Why Not?
- Jack Nicholas was asked several years ago if he could beat Tiger Woods in his hayday - His response was to give him the technology these guys are playing with today and he would beat him every day. Same deal. Swim Baby Swim!
- —Guest Debbie Harris
swim suits
- This controversy sounds a little like some Luddite throw-back the technology is here to stay,so does this mean that forever people must not use fast suits. So records get broken,as someone else wrote that's what they are there for. Eventually things will settle down and the new records will be todays goal.
- —boase
Does the suit really do that much?
- I know the suits people are using today may seem unfair, but how much time to the suits take off? A few hundredths or tenths of a second? Take a look at the old records vs. the new ones. People have been dropping time like crazy and the old records don't even come close to the new ones. People need to realize that records can be broken even without super suits.
- —Guest Josh
super suits suck
- I am a highschool swimmer and 40 years ago my team was realy good but now they are just avrage but with super suits the records set by hard work and determination 40 years ago are being smashed by people who without the suits would never come close to the records and i dont think that this should be allowed. It makes confrance snd sectinoals come down to who spends the most not nessisarily who has the most talent not saying that some of the records are not being broken by talent (Matt Elliott) but alot are being set and broken by "super suits" and money not hard work.
- —Guest ashton long
super suits : good or bad?
- well all sports will keep changing and the technology will keep evolving. like tenis rackets, baseball bats, but is a swim suit really the same? there should be rules in nat'l comps but not in cba+ meets.
- —Guest swimmerrrr
objective swimmers need to be polled
- as a 25 year old ex club and collegiate swimmer, and current masters swimmer and coach, i have swam millions of yards and competed in hundreds of meets, and over 100 triathlon related events. in both sports, technology has progressed since i was exposed to the sports in 1990 and 1992 respectively. the speedo lzr has replaced the speedo aquablade, as the aquablade replaced the S2000 and paper suits. likewise, bikes are lighter, faster, more durable, and yes, like the suits, more expensive. if you ask 95% of current swimmers from club to college to masters, they will agree that the suit's true advantage is a psychological one as much as physical. one FEELS faster in the suit, just like you feel faster when shaved down. I cannot think of any swimmers I know that would want a suit ban. I see 15 year old kids going times infinitely times faster than I did a decade ago, but there are many other factors involved other than suits. The whole sport has evolved - from training, nutrition, etc.
- —swimZOT84
go back to the old ones
- I'm doig an assignment of swimming and the forces involved. It seems to me that there are a lot of people who don't like the fact that people are making better suits.Personally i think they should go back to the old ones. the old records were won by being really fast and now they are being taken over by slower people. the reason they dont all wear the same suits is because when these really good suits came out people had to pay around $5000 to wear one in a professional swim comp because of other companies loosing money to Speedo.
- —Guest .................
Keep the supersuits.
- As the times keep progressing, so will technology. Suit manufacturers will continue to make even BETTER body suits that the ones that exist today. All that will happen is that people will keep getting displeased and the same thing will happen over again. To all of you: SUCK IT UP! You need to start rolling with new times, and catch up with the new ages. Why should we be one of the only sports of whom is devolving while others progress? SO WHAT if these so called "super suits" actually "help" someone. I think youre wrong on that! The Swimmer Makes The Suit, Not The Other Way Around. Sure, the suits like blueseventy and LZR Racers help a little, but so do Fastskins, Recordbreakers, and other championship suits, but a novice swimmer in a super suit will not beat an olympic champ, it makes no difference. They were made for a purpose, for one to FLY through the water. So what if old records are broken? Thats What Records Are There For, They're a guideline! If one cant afford it tough luck.
- —Guest You are ALL wrong.
unfair to ban now
- last year at high school state, lots of state records in WI fell. If the suits are banned now, it will be harder to break these records which had suit assistance
- —Guest Tommy
Two classes of swimmers and records
- Have two classes of records and swimming and swimmers. Tech suits meets, records and competition, and Fair Means meets, records and competition. Actually that would make three classes, since there already is another swim sport, fin swimming. Just make the rules so that tech suit swimmers are simply not compared with fair means swimmers, just as you can set any official swimming records wearing fins. Other sports have this. There are professional drug free, as well as steroids body builders. And in mountain climbing there is fair means without oxygen, but that doesn't stop Tenzing and Hillery from being the first known to conquer Everest because they did carry oxygen.
- —Guest Theodore Pong
Level playing fields for ALL swimmers.
- Everyday I watched the World Swimming Champs, by Wednesday it was was becoming a farce, nearly 6 secs off one of the old world records, commentators all saying "how fantastic" absolute rubbish. If an athlete did that on a running track in the 100mts there would cries of "must be taking drugs' yet put a swimmer in one of these new suits and it's acceptable. No it is not, it's a thin wet suit, put them back into textile suits and let's see if the same people are up there winning the gold medals. I'm a swimming instructor/coach and would not encourage any of the children in our pool to have one of the suits, hard work and natural talent wins medals not 'Daddie's' credit card.
- —Guest Jacks
FINA has dropped the ball
- Remember ....this is just my opinion.I feel that FINA delayed their decision until after the World Championships so that more records would be broken by countries other than the US. FINA is a very controlling organization and what they say always goes....they knew what was going to happen with these suits and just chose to turn a blind eye. Now our sport has been tainted and I am not sure what can be done to fix it.
- —TSMG
AMEN!
- It's about time. This controversy should have been settled 5 years ago. This is no consolation to the swimmers who earned World Records by being fast, not wearing the right suit. The swimmers who broke records in the world championships have something to prove now. Are they the fastest swimmer in that event or the luckiest to be able to afford a suit that they knew would not be legal for competition after that meet. Phelps got his wish, we will now see who the real swimmers are. Something tells me he is smiling.
- —Guest Stacy Olexy
Crossing the line
- At the Olympic trials in Omaha in 08' the advantage of the have's vs. the have-not's was very obvious. Not once did I see someone win a race in an old-school suit. Frequently 6/8 swimmers would have the supersuit and the two swimmers that did not were 2-4 body lengths behind at the end. It was very obvious that technology had taken over because most of the swimmers qualified within a fraction of a second weeks before when the suits were not available. Many local open water events now allow 'wetsuits' to compete against 'skins' without handicapping their times. If you ask a 'wetsuit' why they wear a wetsuit almost all will say because it makes them faster. Others will whine about the water temp and only a few will admit they are not good enough swimmers without them. The addition of wetsuits to open water events has almost ruined one of the purest "mankind against the elements" challenges. Open water & pool swimming should be a test of one's skill not a test one's wallet.
- —Guest Guest
create new swim events
- Why not see what the difference really is between the "old" and "new" swim suits by having new events where all the high tech stuff is allowed and having the usual other events where the old style suits are only allowed? This would keep everybody happy--the tech innovators would still be able to mess around with their swim suit designs (and perhaps their stroke styles--remember that backstroker who used to swim more than half of the race underwater?) and the old school swimming could still keep true to the "traditional" swimming styles (so people could really compare spitz to phelps over the years).
- —Guest anonymous
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