Michael Phelps in a Speedo LZR swimsuit.
Here is a sports headline that warmed my heart: “Swim officials want more skin, less suit in the pool.” FINA, the governing body of international swimming, is discussing new rules to restrict the use of high-tech swimsuits of the kind that led to a ridiculous 108 world records in the past year. Some critics have called the use of such suits “high-tech doping.”
“Potential regulations regarding suits include a maximum buoyancy effect, a maximum thickness (no more than one millimeter), limiting coverage areas (suits would not extend past the shoulders or ankles and would end below the neck), and limiting swimmers to wearing one suit at a time.
Yes, that last item is correct. Apparently, swimmers were putting on two, and sometimes three suits to receive enhanced benefits. Also, there have been rumors of suits’ providing external influences: pain reduction and electro-stimulation.
The trend was accelerated by the introduction of Speedo’s LZR suit, which saw a flurry of world records fall in the first month of its use early last year. This prompted an arms race among other manufacturers and put more focus on the technology than the athlete.
Returning Olympic medallist Geoff Huegill welcomed the recommendations, saying they would restore a level playing field to the sport.
“All of these suits should be tested and I think the other changes make a lot of sense,” he said. “It was pretty embarrassing when you had people like (Italian Olympic champion Federica) Pellegrini wearing multiple suits - she looked like the Michelin man. I am all for evolution in the sport, but a line had to be drawn somewhere.”
I have jokingly lamented the aesthetic abomination of the new full-length high-tech suits, but on a serious note agree that standards need to be set. If all swimmers wore the same suit, then each would sink or swim based on his skill and training.
Below, the ideal swimsuit:
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 6:44 am
I say make ‘em swim nude like the Greeks intended!
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Perhaps they could perform three independent tests to find out whether and how much each suit adds to the speed of the racer then make that the official suit of the Olympics.
Competitors could choose to wear it or not.
The tests could be performed using high school and college swimmers during a year or two before the games. What do pro team sports like American football already do? Maybe ask them?
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
We’ve said for years they should just wear the traditional Speedos. With resistance in the water such a huge part of the sport, that they ever allowed leggings or full-body suits was a travesty for the sport anyway. Put an asterisk next to all the records recorded in these suits and go back to what was working just fine in the first place.
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I totally agree with you Cyd.
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Those full body suits are hideous. I think the traditional Speedos should be the only suits allowed and the old records restored. Because it should really be a swimmers strength and skill should determine who wins.
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I agree with Cyd here. These full body suits not only look hideous they also give the athlete extra “powers” they shouldn’t have in the first place.
I’m all for the traditionally low cut speedo.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 1:33 am
DJ you horn dog. Surprise surprise! There’s a big fan base for them skimpy speedos :).
OK why aren’t the coaches and swimming community prior to these suits erupting up in arms about their legitimacy? Wearing more than one at a time too???
WTF has happened to swimming. This aint doping it’s skinning.
Thanks Jim for the pic of the black speedo wearing torso dude. Damn.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 2:32 am
LOL, yes, many a FAP FAP at the midnight bells of sultry goodness.
I get enough speedo watch from my bf, in fact, I’m sorta getting tired of it really. He enjoys swimming, so I let him be.
Anyway, as I was being serious before, the sport like many sports has slowly corrupted itself whether it be from money, drugs or plain BS sprouting in and about the sport.
If it was skinning, wouldn’t that be circumcision?
Sorry, I just had to make a pervy joke.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 4:27 am
there is one good thing about the full body suits , swimmers are now allowed to keep their body hair , now if we could only work out a way for swimmers to keep their speedos AND their body hair
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Speedos si, body hair no.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Andrew Ewen,
Actually, full body suits do not remove the need to shave. One of my teammates wore a full body suit, but didn’t shave his legs and so his leg hair was sticking out of the suit. I’m not sure how the LZR suits work in that regard, but the traditional body suits certainly do not remove the need to shave.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I too prefer the traditional brief cut, but swimming will never go back because the high tech suits are considered “technological advances”. They help swimmers go faster and that is perceived as helping the sport.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 11:46 am
To give credit where credit is due, the swimmer pictured is Joe Doyle who swam for The Ohio State University.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
swimming is a very technical sport, so it shouldn’t be surprising that new technology, has improved times. what is surprising is that body suits has been available for years. controversy has only recently surfaced, probably because of the publicity surrounding Beijing and Michael Phelps’ accomplishments at the Olympics.
as a swimmer and an olympic swimming fan, i support an even playing field of availability of suits to elite swimmers (Phelps had multiple custom-made Speedo LZR suits @ +$500 from his sponsor) and the option for them to wear them or not.
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Mr. Doyle is put together just fine/takes care of himself well and was a hell of a college swimmer if you check his bio. out.
http://wetspeedos.blogspot.com/2007/11/joe-doyle-god.html?zx=dd20df03ec107786
http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=89213&SPID=10398&DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1060185
Good Irish name too. He was also born almost the same day I had my masters thesis defense at Syracuse
Now I just feel like an old letcher.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 2:16 am
I wonder how submissive he is.
on Feb 26th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Thank you, Swim Fan! Master Doyle make this Michigan fan humble enough to cross Big Ten lines and appreciate him.
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Great summary, Jim!
Not so much to ignore Mr. Doyle as to get back to the reasons the suits have become so controversial, several of the posters above have made some good guesses and a few have made me laugh (in a good way). The issue has gotten so complicated the best way to steer people interested in the subject is to send them to SwimNews.com for Craig Lord’s diligent tracking of this topic since Day 1 (Swimming World’s online coverage has been OK but not nearly as comprehensive).
Here’s something that should help from the photo above of Phelps. There are two gray opaque panels on his chest area (one of which has the Speedo logo). Those panels are surrounded by darker material that becomes transparent as he’s stretching, showing visible threads. The opaque panels are stretching too, but just as you can’t see the threads beneath neither can water penetrate them. Such panels have been applied in varying patterns by manufacturers; some manufacturers have not said what those panels are made of but others have been clear that neoprene is involved. Neoprene floats and, further, can trap air against the body – blueseventy (sic), a wetsuit manufacturer, has become a dominant player to the point that I think Speedo has had second thoughts about the whole movement.
The hot word that FINA and its scientific and legal consultants are using to address the matter is “permeability.” FINA unwisely approved some models of these suits in mid-late 2007 without scientific testing. That was simply the latest skid on FINA’s slippery slope that began in the 1990s with swimsuits that were supposedly faster because of the material’s weave, then proceeded with the first wave of body coverage in material covered in Teflon patterns (some mimicking “sharkskin”) and then to increasing applications of unnamed substances to the point of the neoprene coatings. In other words, suits have become less permeable over time.
Further, the tightness of the suits has been suspected of having a compression effect. This is no surprise to any of us in Masters swimming, where older, plumper bodies have, in the last dozen years, embraced the bodysuits and their “support.” Well, what was previously just anecdotal is now getting some real scientific scrutiny.
Whatever comes out of FINA later this month will guide the swimming community for 2009, and FINA has announced that guidelines may change further beginning with January 2010. Some people are upset that it may mean asterisks on all the marks set during the period of these suits, but a consensus seems to be growing that asterisks are far preferable to years of ongoing debates focused on what someone is wearing rather than someone’s performance.
Reduced skin coverage is likely to be the happy accident of the solution. Hear, hear!
- Charlie Carson, former IGLA delegate to the Federation of Gay Games and Assistant Competition Manager for Swimming, Atlanta Olympic Games
on Feb 28th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I actually like the semi-clothed tight-against-the-skin look from the bodysuit look, and hope there will not be a return to just speedos. However, I agree that there should be standards and swimming should not be about technology.
on Mar 3rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Whether you’re Gay or Str8, “tech suits” are the uglyist thing to come about in athletic wear ever.
They make the swimmer look like some kind of creature from a Sci-Fi movie. In fact, that is what I think the designers of athletic wear are really trying to do -make some kind of fashion statement.
I’d rather go back to the old fashioned briefs for guys and bikinis for gals. Anyone with a swimmer’s body is a lot more pleasing to the eyes than someone wearing techy garbage of a suit.