Last August, the swimming world reached an all time high with Michael Phelps' 8-gold medal performance. With his historic performance at the Beijing Olympics, Phelps brought swimming into the limelight and gave it significant recognition in the United States and around the world. Since then however, swimming has suffered from one of the most controversial and arguably disgraceful repercussions technology. Before the Beijing Olympics, there was much press coverage of the revolutionary Speedo LZR suit worn by many of the athletes. The LZR introduced the latest in suit technology with a lightweight fabric, bonded, not woven, seams, and significantly less drag. But after the Olympics, Speedo's rivals scrambled to design a suit that could be even faster. The results have proved tumultuous, controversial, and even detrimental to the sport of swimming. In early 2009, Italian suitmaker Jaked and France's Arena introduced new suits that made a splash (no pun intended) in the swimming world. These suits, made fully from polyurethane, give the wearer a profound advantage in buoyancy and are essentially impervious to water. The Speedo LZR is a textile suit with polyurethane panels but is less than 50% polyurethane. The fully polyurethane suits, the Arena X-Glide and the Jaked suit, have, in the minds of many, transformed and denegrated the sport of swimming. At the recent FINA World Swimming Championships, close to 45 world record marks were lowered from their previous marks. Perhaps the most shocking was China's Lin Zhang (wearing a Jaked suit) shattering famed distance swimmer Grant Hackett's 800 meter freestyle record, which had stood for five years, by six seconds, a vast amount in a swimming race.
As world records fell left and right, there was a stronger and stronger outcry from the swimming community for action to be taken. FINA, the international governing body of swimming, had talked of banning the suit, either in January or in April of next year. Amidst the falling world records, a few swimmers, including Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte refused to wear the new suits. When FINA talks began to lean towards an April/May ban, Phelps' coach Bob Bowman threatened to pull him out of any international competitions until the suit was banned. Three of Phelps' world records were broken at the World Championships, two by swimmers in the new suits. Germany's Paul Biedermann, who both beat Phelps in the 200 freestyle and broke his world record, openly admitted that the suit gave him an advantage and hoped that they were banned in the future so that he could challege Phelps on a more even playing field. FINA announced yesterday that a ban will be in effect January 1st of 2010. But the damage is done. World records have been broken by swimmers that, likely, will never be able to swim that fast again. The names of the swimming elite, like Grant Hackett and Ian Thorpe, have been practically erased from the swimming record board. Some have proposed that these records be asterisked or even seperately recorded. However, it is now difficult to record, especially at lower levels of swimming, who was and was not wearing a polyurethane suit. This year, the year that swimming wasn't swimming, has caused irreparable damage to the sport that will take several years to undo. In my mind, this year should be regarded largely a fluke and the 2010 Olympic trials and London Olympics will be the true tests for swimming. Hopefully the sport will be able to regain its credibility and swimming's true champions will be recognized.
-ROF
Daily Food: Batter Blaster
Daily Activity: Lounging
Daily Song: This Must Be The Place - Talking Heads
Daily Attire: Boxers
Daily News Everyone Should Care About: Phelps Grabs Record in 100 Butterfly
Daily Life Goal: Buy a Jaked Suit and Break a World Record Before January 1st
Daily Complaint: Polyurethane Suits
Daily Drink: Coke
Daily Television: FINA Swimming World Championships, X GamesDaily Book: Profiles in Courage by John F. Kenedy
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