www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../19679.asp
The most substantial change, of course, is that suits would no longer be allowed to extend past the knee.
My personal opinion is this is sort of an arbitrary change. What really should be changed--if anything--is what types of materials are allowed and maybe testing protocol to approve a suit. I don't really think requiring suits to end at the knees would affect much.
Parents
Former Member
The suit debate seems so much like what was going on in cycling back in the eighties and early nineties. In one case (Graeme Obree's hour record bike) the UCI decided one year later that the position would no longer be legal. If that bike had been made by Trek or Bianchi, instead of being cobbled together from old washing machine parts by Obree himself, would it have remained legal? I guess no-one will ever know. One would hope that large companies like Speedo don't get favoured over small innovators like Blue Seventy.
In the case of clipless pedals, many organizers and officials started doing rolling starts in criteriums (I remember scrambling to get into my toe clips from a standing start) to avoid giving an unfair advantage to clipless pedal users. Crits are still often started this way, even though you'd be hard pressed to find a set of toe clips in the bunch any more.
There was so much debate about whether new things like aero bars were more about equipement than athletic ability. But of course, you still had to get on the thing and ride it, as was proven in the '99 Pan Am games, when a Cuban on a beat up old track bike took the kilo from a competitor on a wind-tunnel tested carbon fiber wonder bike. Even I, slow as I am, have had the experience of passing wetsuit wearers in an open water race while wearing "skin", so obviously no suit is going to turn a mediocre swimmer into a great one.
I think this will all settle down in a few years, guidelines on suits will become more clear, and we'll forget all about the controversy and just get back to swimming.
The suit debate seems so much like what was going on in cycling back in the eighties and early nineties. In one case (Graeme Obree's hour record bike) the UCI decided one year later that the position would no longer be legal. If that bike had been made by Trek or Bianchi, instead of being cobbled together from old washing machine parts by Obree himself, would it have remained legal? I guess no-one will ever know. One would hope that large companies like Speedo don't get favoured over small innovators like Blue Seventy.
In the case of clipless pedals, many organizers and officials started doing rolling starts in criteriums (I remember scrambling to get into my toe clips from a standing start) to avoid giving an unfair advantage to clipless pedal users. Crits are still often started this way, even though you'd be hard pressed to find a set of toe clips in the bunch any more.
There was so much debate about whether new things like aero bars were more about equipement than athletic ability. But of course, you still had to get on the thing and ride it, as was proven in the '99 Pan Am games, when a Cuban on a beat up old track bike took the kilo from a competitor on a wind-tunnel tested carbon fiber wonder bike. Even I, slow as I am, have had the experience of passing wetsuit wearers in an open water race while wearing "skin", so obviously no suit is going to turn a mediocre swimmer into a great one.
I think this will all settle down in a few years, guidelines on suits will become more clear, and we'll forget all about the controversy and just get back to swimming.
