From Swimnews

Craig Lord: "get rid of your stuff with the oldies" Erm, as we say where I grew up: "Up yours Gordon!"

LOL! Time to Choose Your Weapon: Elite or Master I Read as: Time to Choose Your Weapon: Elite or SUCK Right. After all, what good are old people anyhow? They are just gonna die...

as inflamatory as the article is. if masters adopt a wear anything you want policy; mr lord is right.

as inflamatory as the article is. if masters adopt a wear anything you want policy; mr lord is right. This is true in principle. However, we already have no drug testing (as was mentioned in the SwimNews article) and rely on master's swimmers to keep themselves under control. I cannot imagine the cost of master's swimming if we were to require drug testing. I have witnessed FINA drug control randomly showing up at practices of the German National Team in Flagstaff and tried to generalize that to every master's practice in every little pool in all the world. Costly indeed! Nor can I imagine the feasibility of having a ready room to check the legality of all suits worn at master's meets. How many meets would we have in that case? Not many, I think. We'll just have to hope for the best if we have the 'wear anything you want' rule. And for those of us with old age six packs it's fine not to wear any body covering. My six packs have now multiplied into 24 packs & I need a girdle to keep them in place.

But, Jim, we already do not test for drugs. Don't you think that the elite swimmers would be aware of that? Wouldn't that cheapen master's records in their eyes? We who would believe that our ranks are 'clean' may also fall victim to letters of financial gain from oversees. By the way, it's Abrahams, not Abrams... I don't know, Allen, your keg looked pretty well contained to me at Fresno.

I agree that we should abide by FINA rules, when they have gotten over their 'deer in the headlights' mentality toward the current situation and develop a reasonable set of scientific criteria that anyone can understand. But, my reading of the SwimNews article indicates that FINA is willing to let master's swimmers develop their own set of standards for suits. If this is correct, and this is indeed what FINA wants, wouldn't we be following FINA rules by developing our own set of standards? Or do we mean that FINA should apply the same standards to masters as to elites? Then, there is another way to handle the problem: anyone who wants to abide strictly by the FINA elite standards may join USA Swimming and not USMS. Problem solved and we over the hill, toothless old people may just continue to thrash about as we wish.

I found many of the above comments and opinions interesting; however, my observation is that many/all assume that FINA is an organization that knows what the hell it's doing. It seems to me that the suit approval/non-approval issue reveals the opposite. Subjective criteria such as "may trap air" used to eliminate suits that appear to be as good or better than FINA sponsor Speedo's LZR, at a lower price and with much greater durability. That stinks to high heaven. The neoprene suits seem to float you higher, which may or may not be good for swimming. They may trap air, which almost certainly isn't good for swimming. They clearly reduce drag, which is good for swimming. From my observations, they do not "support the core" nearly to extent the LZR does. Which of these artificial enhancements - flotation, air trapping, drag reduction, core support - is OK, and which is not? Craig Lord is an idiot. Boycott swimnews! :bitching:

Why would anyone want to race in a suit that FINA has not deemed legal? Why would anyone want to take PEDs for swimming in a masters meet?

How about FINA Masters rules of: 1) Any suit on the current FINA approved list. 2) Any FINA approved suit as of Jan 1, 2009. This would include B70 Nero Comp. The suit manufacturers would want stay in synch with the FINA ‘elite’ approval list and suits like B70 Nero will quickly die out to be replaced by a currently approved model. I doubt if B70 would continue to produce a Nero for Masters only (especially when the approved Speedo’s are faster). 3) One year’s notice for removal of approval of any suit (‘Once on the list, always on the list’ would be better – but this would force FINA to think for a change) We would then be aligned with FINA but those who bought a FINA approved suit won't then be burnt by the retraction of approval.

I agree with above. A good baseline to think about.:applaud: