By Spiro Zavos
March 11th 2008 @ 12:56am
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2008 Olympics: ban the speedy swimsuits
When the issue of ’speedy’ swimsuits comes up, Don Bradman’s answer to the question of whether athletes of later generations were as good as those of his own era comes to mind.
“Look at swimming,” he would argue. “The times are getting faster but the the water isn’t getting any faster.”
Actually, this is not correct. And Don Bradman’s ‘mistake’ goes to the heart of the controversy over modern swimsuit technology.
Competition swimming pools are much faster than they were in Bradman’s day. Wave-reduction technology and many other improvements have created ‘fast’ pools. As well, a similar improvement in the technology of swimming gear has created faster swimsuits.
Everyone swims in the same pool. But not everyone has access to the fast swimsuits. This is the crux of the argument against the new hi-tech swim wear.
There is also the issue of whether, even under the IOC rules, these fast swimsuits really comply with the regulations about buoyancy and the ‘allowable’ help swimmers can get from their costumes to help them go faster through the water.
Last weekend the Sunday Telegraph had an interesting article in which Murray Rose, one of Australia’s greatest Olympic swimmers, questions the legitimacy of Speedo’s new LZR Racer costume after three world records were posted by swimmers using the suit in the past month.
In Rose’s day swimmers didn’t even use goggles. The women wore caps, presumably to cut back on the drag of their hair. The parts of the body directly exposed to the water (except for the head for men) were shaved. The costumes were made of nylon. And that was about it. It didn’t really matter where a swimmer came from and what access they had to the latest swimming technology. Everyone, more or less, had the same swim wear.
The contest was between swimmers. It was not a contest between technological improvements to costumes. Because the contest was between the swimmers, the Olympic ideals of higher, faster, and longer were honoured.
Where will the technological improvements end? What about the use of gloves? Or special socks? Does the IOC want future Olympic swimming tournaments to become high-tech contests like the America’s Cup or Formula One motor racing?
The only solution, in my view, is to enforce the IOC’s rules on costumes so that someone using a particular suit does not get a significant advantage over their rivals. This means, I would argue, banning the speedy suits.
But is this the answer? Or should it be more a case of ‘anything goes’ as far as new technology in swim wear is concerned?
Read also: China says Games will be safe despite plots
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We were talking about the important things in life, mainly sport.
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Kento said | March 11th 2008 @ 4:11pm | Report comment
Interesting point you raise, Spiro. But while I agree with your argument regarding swimwear, isn’t this a slippery slope? Where does it end? Get rid of better tennis racquets as the old timers only used wooden ones?
Surely if we accept things will change…then we accept things will change. What’s the difference with swimsuits? And where will it end?
onside said | March 11th 2008 @ 4:52pm | Report comment
One problem with swimming is that apart from the Olympics , nobody goes.
State of origin swimming?Give me a break.The best swimmers in the world
might compete at the State titles but you can sit anywhere, because the
place will be empty.Its amazing how hyped swimming is in Australia.I have
no doubt television provides the excitement. Races are won or lost in a time
human beings cannot naturally measure. Loose by two hundreths of a second
and nobody remembers your name. On TV, swimmers are trying to beat a
magic line to the finish.Its like the down hill luge at the winter Olympics. The
key to the tension is watching , not the competitor, but the stop watch.
Technology? maybe the same gear should be available to all.These days we
read more about what some swimmers put inside their bodies in an atempt
to go faster,so its a change to consider the exterior. Its certainly come a long
way from having a Bex because you had a headache, and slipping into your
togs,bathers or swimmers ,depending which state you lived in.
Spiro Zavos said | March 11th 2008 @ 10:42pm | Report comment
The issue of how much technology should be allowed in a sport is a fascinating one. In baseball, for instance, the statistics are ‘manipulated’ in a way by the creation of a ‘lively’ ball if batting statistics are down and not enough home runs are being scored. I wonder if the cricket authorities do the same sort of thing on a secretive basis with the seams on the cricket balls and the ‘hardness’ level of the balls used in test cricket. The bats have certainly evolved with the new technology of bat making. The edges are now huge. The weight is much heavier than in the past. The bats are not oil. Nor are they played in. They do hit the ball much further than bats, say, made 20 years ago did.
Is it time to call a halt to the ‘big’ bat?
Golf has done this. First, the smaller British ball, designed to cope with windy conditions, was banned in favour of the larger American ball, which does not travel as far as the smaller ball but is easier for putting and the short game with more ball for the golfer to work with. The technology in the development of clubs, especially the Big Bertha drivers, has meant that the bigger ball is now being hit further, even my poor golfers, than the small ball was in the past.
Tiger Woods has suggested that technological improvements should be put on hold. There is a limit to how long a golf course can be made to cope with the modern professional with his 280 yards on average drives off the tee.
Swimming hasn’t reach this level of technological improvement of swims suits yet but the time is fast approaching when there will be a significant advantage in wearing a particular swim suit.
This is against the spirit of the Olympics. In field events, I believe, contestants in events like the javelin use the same implements as the other competitors. And in yatching they are allocated boats that are all the same and the winner is the best sailor, not the owner of the fastest boat.
This is fair and in the Olympic tradition and spirit. And this is the point I was trying to make about the swim wear.
onside said | March 12th 2008 @ 12:16am | Report comment
Ok Spiro , I am with you now.Technology in swimmimg should be banned.Cricket, golf, baseball are not relevant
to swimmimg, because swimmimg races are won by hundreths of a second.In the other sports the sportsman
must use equipment, the technology, to play the game.Balls have to be hit with equipment. Opinions on either
the type of technology available to these sports, or wether or not technology should be limited, has no more
relationship to swimming than does cycling. Cyclists need equipment to perform. Swimmers if necessary could
race naked.So caps,googgles and Speedos,thats it.As previously mentioned a swimming race can be won by
a few hundreths of a second.Purpose made full body racing suits give an unfair advantage, warp history, and
as importantly are not in any way necessary.I think pool engineering to minimise wakes,fast pools if you like, is
totally acceptable because no swimmer is disadvantaged. But the line must be drawn at wearing hitech clothing
that is totally superflous to the craft.Furthermore I understand this type of swimwear has very limited shelf life
and is only worn on race day to gain an unnatural advantage.The suit is then disgarded as it gets out of shape
under race conditions.
sheek said | March 12th 2008 @ 9:04am | Report comment
Ah, human nature. If its not drugs we’re using to give us an edge over our rivals, its technology.
And of course, who drives the technology? Merchandising companies. I’m over how national & provincial teams are required, or at least lobbied each year, to change the design of their apparel so dads & mums have to go out & buy the latest jersey, shirt, ball, racquet, etc.
I was much happier in the old days (Atlanta USA, 1996 was the last time I think) when the girls wore those clingy one-piece swimsuits that rode up their bum. Sorry, is this politically incorrect?????!
Charlie said | March 12th 2008 @ 11:22am | Report comment
Why are swimmers not allowed to take performance enhancing drugs, yet are allowed to wear performance enhancing swim wear? I have been against these suits from the moment the manufacturers brought them out and I think the point that they are against the spirit of the Olympics is a very valid one.
onside said | March 12th 2008 @ 1:20pm | Report comment
sheek
its politically correct by me mate, because you’ve got the gender right.
re your observations ; human nature,drugs,technology,merchandising, corporate cynisism.
Times have changed haven’t they. My wife went to school in Brisbane with Tracy Wickham
Tracy trained at the Valley pool. Even when she was in training for the Olympics, she had to pay to get in.
sheek said | March 12th 2008 @ 2:39pm | Report comment
Onside,
Poor old Tracy Wickham. Life has dealt her some unfair blows.
Back in 1980, as a young 16-17 year old, she was silly enough to listen to PM Malcolm Fraser, & withdraw from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, on political grounds. Her shadow Michelle Ford went instead, & won the 800m freestyle.
No disrespect to Ford, but you would have to think Wickham would have been a shoo-in for the 400-800m double. All she had to do was turn up!
And Charlie,
It doesn’t stop there. The mantra is: “don’t get caught”. The IOC turn a blind eye to drug taking, as long as it isn’t brought to their attention by some idiot (like Ben Johnson 1988). Boy, the embarassment Johnson brought to the Olympics was unforgiveable. And if you don’t know a good drug chemist &/or dealer, that’s you own stupid fault.
Trying to stop athletes taking performance enhancing drugs is too hard to police otherwise. Occasionally, small fry are sacrificed, to give the appearance of pro-action. But the big names are protected. Sorry, apologies again about the cynicism.
Money is God…Greed is Good…Drug-taking is Expected…Cheating is a Right (just don’t get caught, stupid).
Millster said | March 12th 2008 @ 4:14pm | Report comment
I don’t think its as simple as that. How about the unseen technology? (I’ll restrict my comments to the sport of swimming but it applies equally to all individual and team sports).
For example, should we ban the use of computer-assisted biometric feedback that measure down to the last millimetre the arm-stroke of swimmers and the force they get from it? We have great - indeed world leading - facilities across the country for this kind of thing. I’m quite certain the Federal Repuplic of Moldova, or the Islands of St Kitts and Nevis, don’t !
The swimsuit is only the focus here because it is visible, tangible equipment used in the race itself. But it is certainly not the only source of potential inequality between elite swimmers.
Spiro Zavos said | March 12th 2008 @ 5:33pm | Report comment
I think the difference with the use of computer-assisted biometric feedback and so on and hi-tech swims suits is that a swimmer getting the feedback still has to put the information into practice with their performance. It’s not as though the feedback actually propels them forward the way the high-tech suit does.
We seen in any number of sports, and I’m sure there are cases in swimming, where someone excels without the help of the computer-assisted information because say of natural advantages like the Kenyan runners from the Riff Valley. Superior athletes are superior to their peers in most instances because they have a physical advantage or their twitch muscles allow them to run faster and so on. Or they may get better training. In most sports, expertise comes from the mind and sometimes intuition, rather than machines.i
These are what I’d call natural advantages. We have competitions to see what the athletes make of their ‘natural’ advantages. The Olympics with its noble vision of ‘higher, faster and longer’ - without drugs and without hi-tech aids during a performance - should honour that vision. That is my point, really.
sheek said | March 12th 2008 @ 6:43pm | Report comment
Millster,
I am cynical about the benefits of computer analysis for the reasons given by Spiro. Humans are still human. You give them all the up-to-date data, but if on the blocks in the final, they don’t feel like swimming today, all that data means nothing.
Ditto football. Eddie Jones, for example, tried to take chance out of rugby. But the more he regimented his players, the more they revolted. Silently, it seems, but the results showed that Jones’ Wallabies were unhappy campers.
If I were a coach, I would try to tap into the human element. What makes each player/competitor tick? When you get all the players moving in the same direction, & believing in the same cause, then you’ll have some success.
Whether it’s a team game, or a competitor & his/her coach, the whole of the team/unit is greater than the sum of its parts.
Farmer said | March 26th 2008 @ 9:28am | Report comment
A late contribution to this article but with the benefit of the recent events at the Olympic Swimming selection trials. This year we have now seen 11 new world records ( in 2 1/2 months) and all have been set using the new suit. The French guy Bernard could only manage 9th last year and has now broken 3 WR.
Clearly the suit has made swimmers significantly faster in the water. Stephanie Rice broke an 11 year old Chinese drug assisted WR last night by 0.8 seconds in a 2 minute / 200 metre race.
What credibility do the world records have. Not much I would suggest. In fact , if a swimmer is not setting world record now, he/she will have no chance in the Olympics.
For all those new world record holders and the back slappers, you are kidding yourself - its the suit - not you. Swimmers doing personal bests by 6 seconds - they might as well be wearing flippers.
Unfortunately, FINA has let the genie out of the bottle and it is going to be hard to put it in back in.
Ham said | April 3rd 2008 @ 9:58pm | Report comment
Another late entry.
It is ridiculous to say that the only reason world records are getting broken is the technology. This is an olympic year, sports people have been aiming for this year to produce their best performances, and as such will have been “training through” other competitions. That is why they have been swimming poorly before and less so now. As for technology, I believe that as long as the suits are purchaseable by anyone (irrespective of price) then they are fine. Do you really think a suit is capable of such huge differences anyway? Lets look at it another way, runners all wear different running trainers each boasting technological advancements that allow specific performance variables to be improved, so they should be banned too?
I must admit, I wouldn’t mind if a limit was put on suits, but this would have to be something which restricts which parts of the body that may be covered, as specific fabrics would be too difficult to regulate. I think the main problem, is the adidas suit which contains elastic cords which claim to aid propulsion from starts and turns, rather than a more hyrdrodynamic fabric.
School boy said | May 5th 2008 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
The argument is a tough one,
I have chosen this topic as my sports issue analysis. The world of sport has merged with modern science to constantly continue to better athletes at peak performance level. We see it in all sports aside from swimming. Soccer balls are developed to be more aerodynamic and water resistant, basketball shoes are made lighter and lighter, but where do we draw the line?
Will the sports world become more and more dependable on science? Do we revert back to the old ways? A normal swimsuit! A normal wooden tennis racket? Heavy weight cricketbats? I seriously dont believe that we will go back a step in the sports world, we will continue to break records, defy boundaries, and push further and further.
…who know’s…? It may not be long before certain drugs are legalized and the sporting world changes altogether..