2) This happens every 4 years right before Olympic Trials. All the swimmers would be breaking records in paper bags right now. In the last 18 months most of the swimmers haven’t taken a break of more than one full day. They are all getting to tweak their training and start to race more at all of these Grand Prix meets. The suits definitely help, but they are not “technical doping” as the Great Britain national coach called them.

3) I completely agree with the availability issue. The elite athletes don’t just get their free suits before everyone, but they have even gotten them custom made to fit them perfectly in the past.

Pretty much all swimmers that go to Olympic Trials have access to free suits, but I have heard that Speedo is behind in their production again and they probably won’t have the suits available to everyone at Trials in time. They never do. I didn’t get the right suit from them in 2000 or 2004. But the elite athletes will have about 1 suit for every 2 or 3 swims. They may cost $600, but they don’t last very long.

Summing up:
The suits help (physically and mentally), but these athletes are breaking records from all of their training and peaking. Both the Speedo suit and the TYR suit are made from the exact same material, coming from the exact same fabric manufacturer. The brilliance of Speedo is that they only release these new suits around times when they know the athletes will be swimming their absolute fastest. The athletes make the suit look good, not vice versa.