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?
I'll give up my relatively inexpensive tech suit when I go to a triathlon and don't see a fat dude riding an all carbon bike with carbon soled shoes in a $200 helmet and a $500 wet suit. Until then, no cyclist is allowed to ever speak to a swimmer about gear again and no whiney swimmers are allowed to tell me how to spend my money.
When cyclists go back to steel framed bikes I'll ditch my suit. Until then, zip it.
Hey I have a Blue Seventy question. I can get a free BS suit. (we own a running tech shop/triathlete stuff too) but I don't know which one would be the best value for me. My favorite races are 1650 (1500), 1,000, 500 Free and any open water freestyle. Any suggestions?
What a logistical hassle that would be.
Yes, you are right. It wouldn't work. I was trying to find a solution.
Wet suits have their own division because the suits make you artificially faster. More money means more speed. I know the rabid capitalists say so what. I guess you could buy off the timers, and be really fast.
At what point do you become uncomfortable with equipment that makes you significantly faster?
yea...swimmers want fast times...
There it is again. An invalid argument. Swimmers want fast times. Fast times compared to what? I am guessing fast times compared to other swimmers. That's what I shoot for anyway. Going your best time is what it is or being fastest at a meet is what it is. How does winning a race improve beyond winning if everyone's times are shifted down 2% (just an example) ? Shifting the average of everyone's times down because of a swimsuit does not improve upon what it takes to go 2 seconds below that average.
The whole "the sport is advancing because of technology and technology is great" theory is a joke. Swimming is about your body and mind not about being able to float better because of what you where. If the latest generation of suits were affordable ("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..."
I could afford to buy any suit I wanted and spending money on my sports is something I don't feel bad about doing but I won't be buying an LZR or B70. Hopefully the upcoming FINA meeting will be a catlyst for change.
Wookiee-dude,
Sorry, but I gotta disagree with you here. The purists are entitled to their opinion, they can elect to forgo the current technology and, for the most part, they can finish after we do! :chug: Everyone has choices.
Jim...I didn't say they aren't entitled to their opinion...we all are(well..except for geek..stud...cf...ha) But it does get old hearing them grip about the tech suits, which in some form or fashion have been around since the aqua blades came out in the late 90's...but I bet they didn't grip about the the earlier styles of tech suits. In fact, if the prices weren't so dramatically different, a lot of them probably wouldn't be griping now.
So, some...not all...but a good number I would venture to say are being two-faced about the newer styles of tech suits.
There should be two divisions. There is in open water and it seems to work fine.
What a logistical hassle that would be. Unlike an open water race, there are dozens of events in a meet.
So you either (a) make the meet longer by having separate heats for the categories or (b) run the meet as usual but record for every swimmer which category s/he is in, adding time and hassle to the post-meet results processing.
And would there be separate records and TT lists? If so, double the workload for the people who are responsible to those things. If not, then which is the "real" category?
No thanks. I could live with or without the tech suits, but I would hate having two categories.
A purist is simply defined as a person who refuses to acknowledge that sports change over time, either that or they are too cheap to buy new gear. To cover up their cheapness they claim to know how the sport was intended to be played.
