I am curious to see if the banning of tech suits will affect the motivation to compete in masters swimmers who are currently used to wearing these suits.
Obviously, much is in flux right now, but let us stipulate, for the sake of argument, that men are allowed briefs or jammers, and women are allowed leg-less tank suits of the yesteryear variety. Moreover, these must be made out of "normal" textiles--nothing all that fancy. Think spandex, nylon, or polyester. Think Speedo catalogs from the 1970s.
I have gotten used to my tech-suit aided times and am pretty sure that going 2 seconds slower per 100 is going to be psychologically, well, obnoxious. I am not yet sure if it will affect my meet participation, but I gotta say that it might. It's one thing to pay a ton of money to go to a national or even regional meet in the hopes of doing somewhere close to a lifetime best. It's another thing to attend such meets when you will be most likely swimming times more in keeping with your perceived sense of decrepitude and senescence! I know it was always psychological, a small white lie I was telling myself that I was still almost as fast at 56 as I was at 19.
But once the white lie is irrevocably gone, will I want to demonstrate its absence to myself over and over again?
For the truly top elite swimmers, who are racing against each other for bragging rights at the mountaintop of their respective age group, it may make less of a difference. But for some, like me, who were competing more against our own memories of our younger selves, the change might be harder to accept.
By the way, I am one of those who freely admit that tech suits have helped my times significantly.
Maybe USMS will give us an option:
Use a Tech suit, or advance one age group?
For some of us, advancing one age group would be worse. I'd rather go back one age group.
While I really enjoy racing in my B70 and not having to shave, I got back into competing before owning one and definitely intend to go on competing. The suit might have made me a little faster, but I still swam meets even this year without it and I'm happy enough with my times to keep going. It would be a shame to lose anybody over this. Mel, you could always just not shave down...
The Fat Man was not going to buy a high tech full body suit - too many blivet comments. If & when the Fat Man gets up on the blocks, it will be most likely in jammers. He really wants to protect the general public and avoid swimming in suit similar to his 1975 issue Arena that had side panels less that 2 inches.
As long as we are leveling the playing field, I want better genes. And do something about the damn aging process.
Aside from the faster times, I really enjoy the racing experience more in my Blue Seventy (just as I enjoy tennis more with my K Factor racket). And didn't Mr. Negative tell us Masters swimming is all about having fun?
I definitely won't compete again if we can't wear long suits. I'm fed up with shaving down (about equal to my best swims in the tech suits, by the way) and will find another sport or two to enjoy. That said, giving up competition will also result in not rejoining USMS since, as I've said a number of times on this forum, competition is the only thing that USMS provides to me that is unique enough for me to pay the fees.
So far, this looks reasonably reassuring for USMS. However, I do think that there are likely to be consequences if and when we are back to the 1970s era, and these consequences may be hard to predict.
I wouldn't be surprised to find, for instance, that OW increases more in popularity relative to pool swimming. I also think that more people will swim for fitness and health as their prime motivator.
Those who say they will be more likely to compete may be fellows like Muppet, who has never worn tech suits (to my knowledge) and hence is likely to see his standings ascend.
But those who have been early adopters of the fastest suits, and have been using these pretty much nonstop since the Aquablade days--I fear that they may say they'll continue competing at the same levels. But a season or two of times much slower than they are used to doing may prove either actively discouraging or, perhaps more likely, absent of the motivation that good times had been providing (perhaps without the full extent being acknowledged.)
In my own case, for instance, I have managed to just squeak into the upper 52's in the 100 yard freestyle, and the 1:56's in the 200.
If I find it really hard to break 55 in the 100, and impossible to break 2:00 in the 200, even if everyone else in my peer group undergoes similar time adjustments, I am virtually positive it will prove a major, major bummer!
Hopefully, I will get used to it and keep going to meets. But I can definitely see cutting back on competition per se. Again, time will tell. It's kind of like the stock market. My pitiful portfolio has shrunk to even more pitiful status. It doesn't help that everybody else's has shrunk similarly (with the exception, perhaps, of the Goldman Sachs and Private Health Insurance CEO world.)
The playing field will be level so the time factor will be relative. Returning to shaving down and growing new crops seems is not something to look forward to. And seeing if anyone can break those asterisked records before we all die will be interesting.
Mel, you could always just not shave down...
I tried this a couple of years ago at a meet as an experiment and am just not competitive with myself 1) in a fast suit or 2) shaved and tapered. What made competition really fun for me over the last 10 years was the ability to turn in high-quality times year around and not just have to wait for one meet.
But, hey, it's been an enjoyable run and I've got lots of other things to explore if USMS does away with the body suits. I've been doing a lot of indoor rowing in the last couple of years and might try single sculls next summer here in Denver to see if I can get ready for my next age-group change and do nationals in that sport.
