Swimming has dug itself into a massive hole and the only way out is to keep digging. Six world records were broken on the opening night of the FINA world championships including two that some thought would never fall.
Ian Thorpe’s 400m freestyle and Inge de Bruijn’s 100m butterfly world records were two of the oldest in history yet both fell to a couple of European nobodys wearing new generation swim suits.
German Paul Biedermann swam his final 100m 1.75 seconds faster than the great finisher Thorpe ever could.
Something is seriously wrong.
Remember, this was a record that the sport’s greatest ever swimmer Michael Phelps took one attempt at and gave up – he knew it was impossible to beat.
Now a 22-year-old German who has never been ranked inside the world’s top 20 before this year is the best ever.
Even he admitted he would not have beaten Thorpe by 0.01s if not for his shiny new Arena X-Glide.
Not so long ago such improvements, particularly by a German, would have caused more than a few raised eyebrows for performance enhancing drugs.
Yet FINA are the ones responsible for the performance enhancements taking place in Rome.
They are allowing swim suits in competition despite a revolt by every nation to ban them for 2010 and beyond.
The fear now is Biedermann’s record will remain forever.
FINA is going to let all world records set in 2008-09 stand in fairness to those athletes who swum in that time.
What about the fairness to athletes in the future?
It took seven years and a hell of a lot of suit advancements to get close to Thorpe’s record. Now we’re turning the clocks back a decade.
The suit issue has divided the swimming community and most agree that something had to be done.
However, no fans in the crowded stands at the Foro Italico gave a damn about what the athletes wore on their bodies.
They stood, roared and cheered for every single world record that fell at the pool.
It will become a tedious repetition by world record 38 later in the week, but they’ll still be on their feet.
Fans don’t care about politics, they pay good money to see fast swimming.
How long will they bother watching when there is no chance they’ll see a world record?
Not long.
How long will sponsors remain attracted to a sport if the fans begin turning away? Not much longer.
FINA was backed into a corner by the athletes and coaches to end the swimsuit farce, yet they may find themselves in an identical situation from fans and investors if no world records fall between 2010 and the London 2012 Olympics.
If FINA don’t reclaim world records then their only course of action in the future will be to open the doors yet again to technology.
Money talks and FINA’s only action then will be to dig even deeper.
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