www.swimnews.com/.../6918
If masters swimming is for fun,spirit, health, some competitive aspects, why does lord care what suits masters swimmers wear?
I found Lord's comments distasteful and moronic, especially since he doesn't seem very dialed into masters swimming. He is on a warpath against "rubber" suits and is clearly not very impartial on the subject.
Yet it seems to me that -- in the midst of all the insults he hurls at us -- he doesn't really care about masters swimming per se, he is mostly worried that elite swimmers will swim at masters meets as a way to skirt the rules.
On the one hand, FINA's apparent decision to exempt masters -- if that's what will happen -- is a little of a relief because I think FINA really is making it up as they go along at this point. The FS-Pro legskins are not on the list, but the full body is? Same thing with the Tyr Tracer Light. These are not impermeable suits.
But I really do hope that, once the dust settles on this (post Jan 1, 2010), USMS and USA-S to have the same rules about swimwear, and that they are in line with FINA's guidelines.
I was also somewhat amused by the realization that FINA does not accept masters WRs that are swum at USA-S meets...which now follow FINA's more stringent swimwear guidelines, while USMS doesn't.
Honestly, my initial thought was that FINA just doesn't want to deal with masters right now, they have enough to worry about with "regular" swimming. Hopefully in the future we'll all be one happy family again.
I loved the B70, but I want masters swimming to remain swimming. I don't want it to become a big body boating for old people sealed into neoprene kayaks sport. That, to me, is NOT swimming anymore!
Isn't this a bit of an overstatement? Don't I recall a whopping .1 improvement in your 100 free SCY going from an FS I to a B70 at Colonies Zones meets? I don't see .1 or other minor differentials as "not swimming anymore." And how exactly can one "swim" in a LZR or Rocket Science or Pro but "NOT swim" in a B70?!
I know there is odd report from certain masters claiming big time drops with a B70, but it doesn't appear to come from the ones who train hard and compete frequently like Chris, Puffery, JimRude, etc.
I think Ian's proposal is pretty reasonable. I see no reason for B70 not to be on the list when other comparable suits are.
I don't know all that much about FINA, and I don't want to be needlessly argumentative here, but a case can be made that this current dilemma is not entirely their fault.
The first major improvement in suits was the Speedo Aquablade. In so many ways, this was--on the surface--a minor change to what was already common, at least for women--i.e., a body suit made out of material that was essentially Spandex and Nylon (if memory serves) with some alternating stripes of hydrophilic and hydrophobic material. The big change with this suit was that men started wearing what I clearly remember my teammates calling "girly suits" because of their cut.
But Johnny Tarzan Weismuller wore a body suit, too, albeit one made out of wool, when modesty first reigned over suits.
If FINA had acted forcefully to deny the Aquablade, the first domino wouldn't have tumbled. One could argue they SHOULD have acted then, but on what grounds? Possibly the teflon-like coating that gave the hydrophobic stripes their impermeability to water? Possibly the fact that the suits went down to the knees? But jammers do this, too. And I can see some litigious guy claiming he wanted his moobs covered and it was sexual discrimination to let women's suits, but not men's, cover the breastal areas.
At the time, a decision to ban the Aquablade did not seem intuitively obvious. Was there much controversy back then? Did anyone even suggest that FINA should ban the Aquablade?
But they didn't act then, and really, who blamed them at the time for failure to act?
Though it wasn't obvious (to me, at least) at the time, this was the first trickle of toothpaste exiting the tube--basically allowing suit design to have a significant impact on swimming speed. Everything since then have been improvements on this initial technology. Everything since then has been enabled by FINA's decision not to decide to keep the genie in the bottle. With the Aquablade, the nuclear arms race of suits began!
The toothpaste-genie is out of the tube-bottle, and it's going to be awfully hard to get it back in.
Has FINA said anything about WRs set in now illegal suits? Will there be asterisks? Is the current "fastest" allowable suit the LSR? If this is the case, is Speedo going to be permitted to improve on this?
I don't know.
Athletes want to go fast. Companies want to create demand for their products. If the quest for faster suits is allowed, then it becomes like the America's Cup race: exorbitantly expensive to get tiny bits of incremental improvement in the little wiggle room the regulations allow.
Yikes!
Put the lid back on Pandora's Box before swimming joins Nascar, yachting, and Las Vegas Bunny Hunts as recreational activities available only to the super rich!
To sum up:
toothpaste out
genie out
Pandora's Box open
Bunny Hunts in Las Vegas our only viable option?
Where was I?
That link to the fina masters rules does not work. It gets a 404 error.
But I did find them, looks like they updated the site.
FINA rules and bylaws
www.fina.org/.../index.php
If FINA had acted forcefully to deny the Aquablade, the first domino wouldn't have tumbled. One could argue they SHOULD have acted then, but on what grounds?
At the time, a decision to ban the Aquablade did not seem intuitively obvious. Was there much controversy back then? Did anyone even suggest that FINA should ban the Aquablade?
Though it wasn't obvious (to me, at least) at the time, this was the first trickle of toothpaste exiting the tube--basically allowing suit design to have a significant impact on swimming speed. Everything since then have been improvements on this initial technology. Everything since then has been enabled by FINA's decision not to decide to keep the genie in the bottle. With the Aquablade, the nuclear arms race of suits began!
Put the lid back on Pandora's Box before swimming joins Nascar, yachting, and Las Vegas Bunny Hunts as recreational activities available only to the super rich!
To sum up:
toothpaste out
genie out
Pandora's Box open
Bunny Hunts in Las Vegas our only viable option?
Where's the chick option? I don't care about bunnies in Vegas, so I guess I'll keep my suit. :)
I don't find this argument persuasive. This is sport, not antiquing. No need to preclude technological development. If it is somehow desirable to cause such development to be excruciatingly incremental, FINA should have taken a more calculated, science based approach instead of approving everything in sight right away. I don't see why we should have to go back to the dinosaur age and use fossilized swimsuits in perpetuity.
This is sport, not antiquing.
Leslie, Leslie! Obviously you have never participated in the new sport of Xtreme Antiquing.
If you had, you wouldn't be so dismissive of the dangers faced by our nation's top Xtreme 'tiquers as they pinch and eye-gouge each other en route to Louis Catorze (spelling?) shiferobes (spelling again?)
Now there's a sport where you need a suit.
And goggles.
Leslie, Leslie! Obviously you have never participated in the new sport of Xtreme Antiquing.
If you had, you wouldn't be so dismissive of the dangers faced by our nation's top Xtreme 'tiquers as they pinch and eye-gouge each other en route to Louis Catorze (spelling?) shiferobes (spelling again?)
Now there's a sport where you need a suit.
And goggles.
They would be properly clad in antique aquablades then! We can keep the suits that make our sport sexy, fast, fun and more high profile. FINA is annoyed with the number of WRs, but it will eventually even out again if they put proper standards in place.
http://suitwars.com/?p=81
No need to preclude technological development.
But we've got plenty of tech development in the sport outside the realm of suits. Faster pools, better training, better understanding of nutrition, etc. Maybe suits should be the one, more or less, static thing, much like wood bats in Major League Baseball.
www.swimnews.com/.../6918
If masters swimming is for fun,spirit, health, some competitive aspects, why does lord care what suits masters swimmers wear?
He is such an ass. Did you see his comment about serious swimmers doing it for "vanity" reasons. Is he nuts? Why is he so bitter?
This obviously isn't official. But perhaps it indicates that FINA is inclined to say it's new "rules do not apply to masters" on June 19?
