I am just back from the SPMA meet where all the top finisher were wearing the latest generation tech suits,mostly B-70s(or were named Jeff Commings.)I have here to for been in favor of the suits,but now I am not so sure.First,they eliminate the old bench marks.I went my fastest 100m BR in 5 yr in my LZR,but it was only .3 sec faster than I did untapered 5 wk earlier in my first swim in the LZR.So was my swim good or not,I'm not sure.Also,instead of focusing on technique or pace I found myself ruminating over aspects of the suits,how many more swims did the suit have,is it the right size,was the reason I didn't get better results from my B-70 because it was too big?etc.The B-70 has somewhat mitigated the "too expensive,not durable" problem,but for how long.
Lets say a company comes up with a suit that is much faster,say 4 sec/100.Further that it is very expensive(say $1000) lasts 4 swims and is very hard to make so that quantities are always limited and the fastest way to get one is to bid up to $3000 on ebay. Now lets say your nemesis has one,or that getting one is your best chance to get TT or AA or a ZR or WR,or that your child is close to making JO cuts,or finally beating his/her nemesis etc. Is it worth it and where does it stop?
And you have all this crap going on at college dual meets where one team is suited up and another is not and it screws with the meaningfulness of any college meet where people are either all suited up or all not suited up and all you get is people asking "was he suited up when he did that time, pretty lame for such and such school to suit up in season against a non-suited team, etc..."
This sort of thing pre-dates tech suits by decades. Except in the old days it was about one team slightly resting and shaving their swimmers for a dual meet -- usually it was the weaker team doing so and it would come as a surprise to the other team. It was as lame back then as it is now. (Although, to be fair, in some cases only some swimmers would be shaved and these might be swimmers who wouldn't make the conference team and so it was their chance to swim fast.)
And you have all this crap going on at college dual meets where one team is suited up and another is not and it screws with the meaningfulness of any college meet where people are either all suited up or all not suited up and all you get is people asking "was he suited up when he did that time, pretty lame for such and such school to suit up in season against a non-suited team, etc..."
This sort of thing pre-dates tech suits by decades. Except in the old days it was about one team slightly resting and shaving their swimmers for a dual meet -- usually it was the weaker team doing so and it would come as a surprise to the other team. It was as lame back then as it is now. (Although, to be fair, in some cases only some swimmers would be shaved and these might be swimmers who wouldn't make the conference team and so it was their chance to swim fast.)
