Industry news

Swimming bodysuits
The swim brands take FINA to task

FINA probably rues the day when they approved the use of the first bodysuit fifteen years ago. Their decision that a full bodysuit is equipment, not teamwear, when the controversy over allowing swimmers to wear their sponsor’s bodysuit at the Olympics instead of the official teamwear supplied, has now come back to haunt them.

After all, it was argued then, an athlete should be able to choose the equipment that will allow him to perform at his best — thereby acknowledging that bodysuits enhance performance, rather than merely clothe a body.

And now that the suits seem to be doing just that, FINA heeded calls by critics and voted 168 to 6 to ban the use of bodysuits in competitions. From January 2010 only swimsuits that cover men from below the navel to above the knee (jammers) and female suits that don’t go past the shoulders or below the knees will be allowed for competitive swimming.

The irony is that the biggest record breaker this season, Michael Phelps, does not swim with a full bodysuit, but indeed wears one that starts below his navel!

No plastics

Part of the controversy centred around Speedo’s use of polyurethane panels in their LZR Racer that had other swimmers breaking contracts to switch brand as fast as the records were broken. The other brands objected to the construction — which was believed to aid buoyancy — because they believed it was illegal. But FINA initially approved the suits. They have now retracted and ruled that swimsuits will have to be made from textile in future.

Speedo has called the decision by FINA to ban full bodysuits a retrograde step that could be detrimental to the future of swimming.

“We recognise the catastrophic effect and controversy that the introduction of fully non-permeable wetsuits by certain manufacturers has had on the sport of swimming in recent months,” the Speedo statement further reads. “Speedo has always believed that there is no place in the sport for buoyancy aids. We were and remain highly supportive of FINA’s Dubai Charter which recommended the banning of these suits from January 2010, whilst allowing some elements of non-permeable materials.”

The furious debate around the bodysuits centre around two issues: sport scientists claimed the 158 records broken during the past year could be attributed to technology rather than the swimmers; and the fear of coaches that junior swimming will become the exclusive domain of the super rich as the belief grows that you cannot win without a bodysuit (costing around R5 000 each, and they don’t last a competitive season).

After the Beijing Olympics, the focus was on Speedo because most medals were won by swimmers wearing Speedo (many switched brands in Beijing as their sponsors were not ready to provide the technology offered by the LZR Racer).

But, at the recent Rome world championship Paul Biedermann (left) beat Michael Phelps in the 400m freestyle, improving his Beijing time by 4 seconds (a new world record) in an Arena suit. Suddenly the attention shifted to Arena. Its the Arena suit, not the swimmer or his coach, the critics claimed.

TYR has already given notice that they are taking legal action against FINA for banning their new suits. According to a statement released by TYR, the company has instructed its legal council to file a complaint against FINA with the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Strasbourg, France “in the interest of fairness, and out of responsibility to our athletes”.TYR is asking the court to nominate an independent legal expert to determine why some suits, that are nearly identical to TYR’s, were approved by FINA and not TYR’s.

The statement continues that FINA has admitted to no testing protocol and that the governing body has not yet provided the test results TYR asked for at the end of June.

Not suitable for children

The main critics of the bodysuits have, however, been the coaches of swimmers at junior level. For more than a decade the full body suits were considered to be for the exclusive use of elite athletes, who receive the suits from their sponsors.

The use has, however, gradually been growing amongst junior athletes until now in the US, no prospective medal winner will dare go to a meet without a bodysuit. At junior swimming competitions in SA the parents of young swimmers also queue up to buy these suits for their children.

This means that only the rich will in future be able to excel in swimming — especially since a regular competitive swimmer will have to replace the bodysuit during the season (maybe even several times), coaches complain.

While the benefit for top elite athletes may be debatable (it will be interesting what Phelps and co do to their own records next year), coaches say the compression elements of the bodysuits do help align the swimming posture of less accomplished swimmers and can also make them more aerodynamic.

The US National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Swimming and Diving therefore pre-empted the FINA ban by limiting swimmers to wearing one swimsuit at a time, which must be constructed of a woven/knit textile material, permeable to water and air, constructed so as not to aid in buoyancy, and shall not contain zippers or other fastening systems. They design of the suits must also confirm to FINA’s rules that will be insitituted in January.

“These high-tech suits had fundamentally altered the sport and become more similar to equipment, rather than a uniform,” said Becky Oakes, NFHS assistant director and liaison to the Swimming and Diving Rules Committee. “The rules of swimming have always prohibited the use or wearing of items that would aid in the swimmer’s speed and/or buoyancy. The technical suits and styles had evolved to a point where there was little, if any, compliance with these basic rules,” Oakes said.

“These new requirements were necessary to promote fair play and the educational values of high school and could not wait for another year,” Oakes said.

Despite the bans, the bodysuit debates have not by been settled by a long shot, and the swimwear manufacturers are still in discussion with FINA.

They will, no doubt, point out that the developments in swimwear fabrics that allowed for the development of skintight competitive swimsuits surely also gave the first wearers an advantage above swimmers still wearing suits made from knitted fabrics? And will all swimmers have to submit to a size test to ensure that their regular swimsuit does not offer compression benefits if it is worn too tight? And what happens if the records keep on tumbling without bodysuits because of the incredible talent of swimmers like Michael Phelps?

In all sporting codes equipment developments have influenced athlete performance — think back to the old wooden tennis rackets. Few will argue that these sports suffered. Why is swimming any different?