Body Suits or Naked Skin?
Posted on 31 July 2009 by Stenberg-Tendys W.L. in sports
The World Swimming Championships have become more about what the athletes were wearing, than about their performance.
94% of swimming gold medals in Beijing were won by competitors wearing the LZR Speedo suit. However, the body-suits are causing a different kind of phenomena. Some people believe the suits are making a mockery of the sport, in more ways than one.
When U.S. swimmer Ricky Berens bent over to do his stretches, before taking his place at the 4X100m starting block, his tight body-suit split, revealing his bare buttocks to the watching world. He was allowed to continue the race even though he felt the split had gone to his knees.
The same thing happened to the Italian Olympic swimmer Flavia Zoccari a month before at the Mediterranean Games in Pescara, Italy, when her full-body swimsuit split in exactly the same place. Zocarri was extremely upset as she was forced to withdraw from the race.
The International Swimming Federation called a ban to the body-suits, as it was believed they gave an unfair advantage to the wearers and were in fact technological aids.
However, the FINA caved into legal threats and later lifted the ban, allowing the suits to be worn at the World Swimming Championships in Rome. The Italian national swimming team protested to the ban, while the manufacturers said the basis for the ban was scientifically flawed.
The 100% neoprene, or polyurethane aerodynamic body-suits are believed to have been responsible for some unbelievable performances. Some say the suits improved stability and buoyancy and reduced drag to a minimum.
Despite never having made an Olympic final, the French swimmer Frederick Bousquet shaved 0.34sec off the world record in the men’s 50 metres freestyle in April. In June Germany’s Britta Steffen broke the 100m freestyle world record. Both swimmers wore full body-suits.
Michael Phelps chose to stay with last year’s Speedo LZR Racer, which is less than half polyurethane. His manager threatened to pull Phelps out of all future competition if the issue was not settled. It was reported the manager was upset by the new suit, that a fellow-competitor Biedermann was wearing.
Phelps had spent two years helping his coach Bob Bowman develop the Speedo LZR Racer suit, used at the Beijing Olympics. Phelp stood to gain a $1 million bonus from Speedo if he won seven golds, a record held by American Mark Spitz. Phelps left Athens in 2004 with six golds and eight medals overall. He won 8 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics and would have collected his million dollar bonus.
Performance director of the British Gas-sponsored GB team, said: “It should be the athlete who has the most talent and who has worked the hardest that should win the race, not the athlete who is wearing the most technologically advanced suit.”
The FINA are under pressure to return the sport to the more basic low-tech values, by banning the suits from January 1st 2010. However, it is unsure whether America will comply with the ban.
All swimming records created to 2010 will however remain standing, even though around 70% of records were broken by swimmers wearing a full body-suit at the Beijing Olympics. The problem is that swimmers in world championship events and the Olympics, beyond the start of the ban of the body suits, will be competing against records set with a major technological edge.
The questions remain – how much bare skin will be revealed by top swimmers in the coming meets and where do you draw the line in technological advancements? From helmets, to skiis, running shoes, yachts, bows and arrows, tennis rackets and strings, rowing boats etc., all depend heavily on such advancements.
speeedos are fitt
the best running shoes are always made of very resilient synthetic rubber,*`
adidas running shoes are the best in the world and i alway use them in cross country ”
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