USA Swimming has not yet taken any action with respect to the published list of approved suits and will not do so until after the Rules & Regulations Committee meeting scheduled for May 29-30. Following that meeting, a formal announcement will be made regarding how the approved list will affect USA Swimming and its rules & regulations.
USA swimmings statement.
From the updated "story":
In other news, U.S. Masters Swimming released the following statement regarding the impact of the FINA ruling on Masters in the U.S.
While FINA has listed the 202 approved swimsuits, FINA has NOT listed the 10 suits that have been "rejected for not passing the tests of buoyancy and/or thickness" or made a ruling on the "136 swimsuits to be modified in accordance with "Dubai Charter". Until FINA provides the definitive list of banned swimsuits and specific actions on the 136, we should not report any suit as banned in a USMS sanctioned event.
With FINA's policy of not releasing banned suit information, Masters swimers in the U.S. will likely be swimming in whatever suit they want until further notice.
Great statement/petition but you have to pay a small "tax" to sign it. :cool:
If USMS does this I feel it is a cop out.FINA is clearly saying that the not approved suits are banned.I am not saying that USMS needs to follow this.If we want to say suits that were OK on 1/1/09 are good until 12/31/09 then fine.Either agree with FINA or take a reasoned stand against them,don't pretend to not understand what they are saying(although some confusion on the 136 suits needing modification is in order I suppose.)
From the updated "story":
In other news, U.S. Masters Swimming released the following statement regarding the impact of the FINA ruling on Masters in the U.S.
While FINA has listed the 202 approved swimsuits, FINA has NOT listed the 10 suits that have been "rejected for not passing the tests of buoyancy and/or thickness" or made a ruling on the "136 swimsuits to be modified in accordance with "Dubai Charter". Until FINA provides the definitive list of banned swimsuits and specific actions on the 136, we should not report any suit as banned in a USMS sanctioned event.
With FINA's policy of not releasing banned suit information, Masters swimers in the U.S. will likely be swimming in whatever suit they want until further notice.
Is anyone else wondering why we here on the USMS forum can only find the supposed official USMS statement on Jason Marsteller's site?
Rob? Jim? Is there an official USMS position yet? If so, why is it not front and center here?
Either agree with FINA or take a reasoned stand against them.
This seems like a rare occurrence, unfortunately, with FINA in a superior power position, etc.
Doesn't seem like USMS is confused though ... They're just interpreting "approved list" to mean not explicitly banned, subject to clarification, subject to future modification and approval, tentatively unapproved but not per se illegal, etc. The problem with this is swimmers want a real answer: can I swim in X suit and beginning or ending on what date?
I guess we wait to see what USA Swimming says next week.
its sad to see that this ruling has created a panic among us. (though i am not an "us" in this case) i offer these well worn words to those of you who would rather be eaten by wild animals than have to race a single 50 in anything less than full coverage:
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Maybe it's my interpretation, and "there is only text", but I'm not really reading a lot of panic here. Confusion as to what is banned and why, curiosity over what this means in terms of policy and enforcement, and conspiracy theories are mostly what I'm reading.
HAHA....your sooo funny. Good news...not all the body/tech suits are gone. So, we can still race in more than bare coverage.
This should be a start to a happy medium for both sides. For the "pro tech" suit crowds, there is still a large number of body suits out there. One of them should be able to fit your body, distance, event. For the "anti-tech" crowd, some of the suits they deemed really offensive are out in their current form.
So both sides have won and lost.
I really agree, we finally have some sort of standard and list, rather than the wild wild west that has existed the past 18 months.
As to the both sides winning and losing, I suspect wookie is more familiar with the losing than the winning.
In other news, U.S. Masters Swimming released the following statement regarding the impact of the FINA ruling on Masters in the U.S.
While FINA has listed the 202 approved swimsuits, FINA has NOT listed the 10 suits that have been "rejected for not passing the tests of buoyancy and/or thickness" or made a ruling on the "136 swimsuits to be modified in accordance with "Dubai Charter". Until FINA provides the definitive list of banned swimsuits and specific actions on the 136, we should not report any suit as banned in a USMS sanctioned event.
With FINA's policy of not releasing banned suit information, Masters swimers in the U.S. will likely be swimming in whatever suit they want until further notice.
I don't appreciate the fact that a suit I just bought (B70 leggings) is banned, when I expected that it would be good thru Dec 31.
Moreover I agree that the reason for banning ("failing to approve" or whatever) sounds pretty flimsy, especially for leggings. And I believe B70 also submitted jammers?
It sucks for B70 and for swimmers as consumers, since it is a durable suit that is cheaper than the (apparently) comparable Speedo suits.
I'm not going to assume Speedo is behind this unless there is strong evidence of that. I think there has been a bias against B70 (see: Craig Lord) and similar companies due to their history as a "wetsuit" company, and the similarity of the suits to wetsuits.
Having said all that...I really hope USMS toes the line and only allows FINA-accepted suits from here on out. Or at the very least follows USA-S in whatever it decides to do.
And work with FINA to straighten out this mess (eg, use quantifiable, objective and transparent criteria; explain the status of "legacy" suits like nylon suits; etc) as necessary.
