After seeing a woman break 24 seconds and I think we can stop the discussion of "IF" the LZR suit is faster and start thinking "how much faster".
The previous line of suits (Fastskin and so on) were pretty similiar to a shaved swimmer. Sure - they do feel like they make you float, but overall the times seemed to move along "in line" with what I would expect to see in terms of improvements in the sport. If the previous suits would have been that much faster than shaving, you would have never seen people just using the legskins. By the way - for us Masters swimmers there was always the added benefit of keeping in all the "extra layers of skin".
So how much faster are the LZR suits ?
If I had to guess based on the results so far, I would say 0.25 to 0.30 per 50 and double that for the 100. I can see the Bernard going 48 low in the 100 and I can see Sullivan getting close or just breaking the 50 record. It makes sense that Libby Lenton would swim a 24.2 or so in the 50.
I think one of the top regular teams out there should do a test - you need a good amount of world class swimmers training together to be able to do a test. Here is the test I would propose:
8-10 swimmers
2 days of testing
4x50 on 10 minutes all out
Day 1 - swim 2 with a Fastskin2 followed by 2 with the LZR
Day 2 - swim 2 with the LZR followed by 2 with the Fastskin2
Get the averages of all 10 swimmers - maybe drop the high and low and there you go.
Why do the test ? I would HAVE to know. Swimming is a big part of your life and you just set a massive PR using this new technology - my very first question would be " How much was me and how much was the suit?"?
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Former Member
Jazz is there any possibility that his time is better because he trained to be faster. Do you guarantee every one will be 2% faster if they pay $550 for a swim suit. Also how much faster is he then if he wore an old speedo brief. Would that be 3, 4, or 5% faster. Now can we truly say that Phelps could not have won 8 golds if he did not wear the LZR?
Now did Phelps cheat because he wore a LZR if it is later found that these suits are illegal in the future. Will he have to forfeit his medals? Will there be congressional hearings about using a banned swim suit.
Jazz is there any possibility that his time is better because he trained to be faster. Do you guarantee every one will be 2% faster if they pay $550 for a swim suit. Also how much faster is he then if he wore an old speedo brief. Would that be 3, 4, or 5% faster. Now can we truly say that Phelps could not have won 8 golds if he did not wear the LZR?
Now did Phelps cheat because he wore a LZR if it is later found that these suits are illegal in the future. Will he have to forfeit his medals? Will there be congressional hearings about using a banned swim suit.
