High-tech swimsuits

sock puppet

Anyone see FINA's new list of approved swimsuits? On Tuesday FINA announced a list of swimsuits that would be allowed for competition. And surprise surprise, the Speedo LZR suit got approved while their competitors' (namely Arena and Jaked) were not. Apparently these suits trap air giving competitors an unfair advantage.
http://www.fina.org/project/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2389&Itemid=49

I think the whole thing is a farce. If FINA want to allow suits that improve performance then fine. If they want to want to get rid of these suits altogether then that's also fine. But the situation after this decision is ridiculous. It seems that some suits which improve performance are okay while others are not.

AngryHippie

It is a farce. Agreed.
At least if only one suit is used, then it will be a level playing field in competition, the situation before was even worse, but my main concern is that the old records, which were ground-breaking at the time, are being smashed by technology. It is an unfair snub and the old records set in banana hammocks should stand. Apparently it takes 5Kg to sink some of the more recent suit designs (the ones that were used in many of the competitions in the run up to the recent ruling) there is goin to be a lot of ill feeling and confusion about it, and I think the only way to make it fair is to ban all the low drag suits and the bouyancy aid suits. At least for olympic and WC competition.

sock puppet

Yeah I wasn't so sure last year. But maybe 1 standard suit or a total ban might be good. Having said that I've a couple of pairs of racing togs myself. They'd be permeable though so quite different to any of the more expensive stuff.