Should surgical body modifications on swimmers be considered cheating?
People get
lipo
various weight loss stomach and intestine surgeries,
*** reductions,
which in some cases the changes would improve a swimmers speed
I wonder if anyones ever had surgery to create more webbing between their fingers or toes
what else could people do?
ande
Originally posted by nkfrench
Gender reassignment would probably provide a big advantage to a swimmer, such as a "Renee" formerly known as a "Richard".
Nancy I understand your thought on transexuals, but since there are no rules in USMS or FINA there isn't much to go by. A while back we had a transexual swimmer attending our meets and we had to investigate what this means regarding competition, records, top ten, etc. We defered our ruling to the IOC (Internation Olympic Committees) ruling on transexuals. According to the IOC, if they have had the surgery and been living as the new gender for a certian period of time (I can't remember how long) they can compete in the new gender catagory. We figured that if the Olympic committee feels it is fair, we do as well.
The interesting thing about this, is that there have been well documented cases of former male athletes who have gone through gender reassignment and have competed as females, but none of the to date have over powered the competition. Renee Richards certianly didn't rise to #1 in the world of women's tennis.
Originally posted by nkfrench
Gender reassignment would probably provide a big advantage to a swimmer, such as a "Renee" formerly known as a "Richard".
Nancy I understand your thought on transexuals, but since there are no rules in USMS or FINA there isn't much to go by. A while back we had a transexual swimmer attending our meets and we had to investigate what this means regarding competition, records, top ten, etc. We defered our ruling to the IOC (Internation Olympic Committees) ruling on transexuals. According to the IOC, if they have had the surgery and been living as the new gender for a certian period of time (I can't remember how long) they can compete in the new gender catagory. We figured that if the Olympic committee feels it is fair, we do as well.
The interesting thing about this, is that there have been well documented cases of former male athletes who have gone through gender reassignment and have competed as females, but none of the to date have over powered the competition. Renee Richards certianly didn't rise to #1 in the world of women's tennis.
