Swimming’s blockheads take action, sort of, on high-tech suits

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The international swimming federation (FINA) wiped a little egg off its face Tuesday, but it still has to eat the mess it has allowed high-tech swim suits to create in the sport.

Just ask the French swimming federation.

It was left smelling like rotten eggs when FINA representatives announced Tuesday they had not approved the suits in which Alain Bernard (left) set a world record in the 100-meter freestyle (Arena X-Glide) and Frederic Bousquet (right) set a world record in the 50 free (Jaked 01) at last month’s French national championships.

French swimming officials’ laissez-faire attitude toward those suits, which had yet to receive FINA approval when the records were set, means they suffer the embarrassment of having their athletes almost certainly lose the records.

I say ‘almost’’ because who knows what FINA will do next. You usually can be guaranteed it won’t make sense. And its Tuesday announcement left many questions unanswered.

After receiving technical data on the buoyancy, thickness and air trapping qualities of 348 suits from 21 manufacturers analyzed by a Swiss lab, the FINA Commission for Swimwear Approval okayed 202, said 136 had to be modified and rejected 10.
Because FINA listed only those approved, it was uncertain whether the Arena or Jaked suits were among those rejected outright or rejected pending modifications that must be made by June 19, a deadline established so athletes might know which suits they can wear at the July world championships.

But, since the X-Glide and Jaked 01 were not approved as of now, it seems impossible that records previously set in them could stand.

Of course, with FINA everything is possible.

It has allowed the sport’s history to become meaningless by giving in to the commercial objectives of suit manufacturers.

There were 108 world records set last year, 75% of them in Speedo suits (like those worn by Michael Phelps, who could break records without the suits) that are on the approved list.

The new suits have turned swimmers into torpedoes, streamlining them in a way that is totally unnatural.

I know all sports have technological advances. Lighter shoes and faster surfaces (for sprinters) in track and field. Triathlon bars and featherweight bikes to make time trialing and climbing easier in cycling. Goalie leg pads and catching gloves so huge and flexible it’s a miracle anyone scores in hockey.
But nothing else has chabged the essence of a sport the way the suits have in swimming.

And wait, there is more: FINA has approved new starting blocks with an adjustable footrest like the ones used in track. (The current blocks are a flat, sloped platform). The new blocks, made by Omega, help a swimmer get much more propulsion into the water, which translates into faster times -- as much as a tenth of a second, according to a report in the Australian Associated Press.
Oh, yes, they cost more than three times as much as the $400 price tag on blocks used now.

Just what colleges trying to keep swim programs afloat and high schools facing school district budget cuts need to hear.

Which boils down to: equipment manufacturers get richer, and swimming is poorer for it.

Say this for FINA’s leadership, though: it is fast challenging the pooh-bahs in figure skating for the dishonor of having found the fastest way to take their sport into farcical irrelevance.

-- Philip Hersh