FINA suit rules or anything goes?

Since Ahelee posted the first part of the conversation on my blog out here... here's the rest of it between me and CL... (the orignal post and all the comments are here) Rob D. Said... Craig - thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I'm glad to hear you have an appreciation for masters swimming, but the tone of your article wasn't very friendly towards it. As a general rule I don't agree with a lot of your opinions on tech suits, but I try not to get too wrapped up in that. You're not going to change my mind and I'm not going to change your mind on the topic, that's ok. However I took issue with the light that you painted competitive masters swimmers in. Masters has everything from 50+ year old beginners to current and past Olympians. Those of us that compete put forth our best efforts and a lot of us take it pretty seriously, but the competition always stays friendly and I think that's what makes it special. If I misread the meaning of your writing I apologize, but I'm not the only person that took it that way. I guess my biggest question is what is the context of "the rules do not apply to Masters?" Obviously we have some rules that are different (no drug testing, the ability to "butterfrog" in a butterfly race, etc.), but in regards to swimsuits we have been using the same rules as everyone else affiliated with FINA up until just recently. For example, I was at a masters meet in Southern California this weekend where officials asked swimmers to remove drag suits to stay in accordance with the 1 suit rule even though a drag suit doesn't offer any speed advantage. The correspondence I've had with people in USMS basically points towards masters falling in line with FINA once they make a clear and concise ruling, and I assume we will. Whether that happens or not is yet to be seen and out of my control, but a scenario where masters is left open as a technological free for all is pretty unlikely. Craig Lord said... Rob, my question to FINA was worded in a way that it would be impossible to be understood in any other way: I was talking ONLY about suits. On the other matter, some seemed to have linked "SwimNews doesn't cover masters" with my take on a minority of masters. SwimNews doesn't cover masters because we only cover the elite race pool, and yes, there is a big gulf between those two worlds, as we all know. That is not to belittle any of the splendid things that go on in masters but nothing, in any sport, any activity, can compare with the highest plain in that world of activity. Like central government, FINA and a village committee, if you like: they're all politicians but they're not quite the same thing. I think in time, if masters gets to be the playground that it may become should the fast suit folk remain, you may come to understand better some of the issues I have given warning about over the past year. Kind regards, Craig

Since Ahelee posted the first part of the conversation on my blog out here... here's the rest of it between me and CL... (the orignal post and all the comments are here) Rob D. Said... Craig - thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I'm glad to hear you have an appreciation for masters swimming, but the tone of your article wasn't very friendly towards it. As a general rule I don't agree with a lot of your opinions on tech suits, but I try not to get too wrapped up in that. You're not going to change my mind and I'm not going to change your mind on the topic, that's ok. However I took issue with the light that you painted competitive masters swimmers in. Masters has everything from 50+ year old beginners to current and past Olympians. Those of us that compete put forth our best efforts and a lot of us take it pretty seriously, but the competition always stays friendly and I think that's what makes it special. If I misread the meaning of your writing I apologize, but I'm not the only person that took it that way. I guess my biggest question is what is the context of "the rules do not apply to Masters?" Obviously we have some rules that are different (no drug testing, the ability to "butterfrog" in a butterfly race, etc.), but in regards to swimsuits we have been using the same rules as everyone else affiliated with FINA up until just recently. For example, I was at a masters meet in Southern California this weekend where officials asked swimmers to remove drag suits to stay in accordance with the 1 suit rule even though a drag suit doesn't offer any speed advantage. The correspondence I've had with people in USMS basically points towards masters falling in line with FINA once they make a clear and concise ruling, and I assume we will. Whether that happens or not is yet to be seen and out of my control, but a scenario where masters is left open as a technological free for all is pretty unlikely. Craig Lord said... Rob, my question to FINA was worded in a way that it would be impossible to be understood in any other way: I was talking ONLY about suits. On the other matter, some seemed to have linked "SwimNews doesn't cover masters" with my take on a minority of masters. SwimNews doesn't cover masters because we only cover the elite race pool, and yes, there is a big gulf between those two worlds, as we all know. That is not to belittle any of the splendid things that go on in masters but nothing, in any sport, any activity, can compare with the highest plain in that world of activity. Like central government, FINA and a village committee, if you like: they're all politicians but they're not quite the same thing. I think in time, if masters gets to be the playground that it may become should the fast suit folk remain, you may come to understand better some of the issues I have given warning about over the past year. Kind regards, Craig