FINA Considers Tinkers To Swimsuit Regulations

FINA Considers Tinkers To Swimsuit Regulations Amy Shipley; Washington Post Staff Writer Just weeks after adopting new rules designed to end the controversy over high-tech, full-body suits, FINA, world swimming's governing body, is having second thoughts and considering tinkering with its swimwear regulations as early as January, several U.S. and international officials said. Since FINA decided in late July to allow only waist-to-knee textile suits for men and neck-to-knee textile suits for women, the governing body has been under pressure to make men's and women's swimsuits equal in size, the officials said. "There's an enormous amount of pressure on the FINA Bureau now to have the body coverage be the same for men as for women," said Chuck Wielgus, USA Swimming's executive director. "We are very concerned that FINA might not stick with what was approved in Rome by the FINA Congress." USA Swimming had put forth the proposed rule changes that were adopted by a nearly unanimous vote of the congress -- more than 200 member nations of FINA -- before this summer's world championships in Rome, but the national governing bodies for Britain and Australia kicked off a rethinking of the ban just days after the vote, officials said. Both sent letters to the governing body proposing equal body coverage for men and women. British Swimming Chief Executive David Sparkes said in an e-mail that the British governing body would take no action beyond the letter it sent, but added, "no doubt this matter will be given further consideration." Said Swimming Australia spokesman Lachlan Searle: "Swimming Australia had raised with FINA in Rome the possibility of equality for male and female in neck-to-knee coverage in relation to the proposed new swimsuit ruling. However, at this stage we have had no advice from FINA that it has any intention of changing its proposed rule." A spokesman for FINA said no such proposal was yet on the agenda of the next FINA Bureau meeting, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 15-16 in Bangkok. But the proposal would be added to the agenda if put forward by a FINA committee, and FINA's technical committee plans to consider it in November, according to Carol Zaleski, the chair of the committee. Zaleski said FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu instructed her in an e-mail to add the suit issue to the technical committee's agenda. "I truly don't understand where Australia and Great Britain are coming from on this," Zaleski said. "Why anyone is having second thoughts afterward I don't quite get. For me, it's common sense: Men's and women's suits have always been different for obvious reasons." Zaleski said she did not know where the other 14 members of the technical committee stood on the issue. She and other officials speculated that the coverage issue was less about equality of the sexes than sponsorship concerns -- and the legal ones that tend to arise when sponsors feel threatened. Sponsor logos are readily visible on suits that extend over the chest, but they can't be seen well -- particularly when swimmers are still in the water -- on the men's waist-to-knee "jammers." USA Swimming officials say the rules enacted this summer were designed to minimize the impact of suits and put the focus on the swimmer. That, they said, should be sport officials' highest priority. Since FINA adopted the current ban, the NCAA and National Federation of State High School Associations put similar bans in place. USA Swimming, meantime, planned to formally adopt the ban at its annual meeting in September, setting an immediate implementation date. September 2, 2009 athleticbusiness.com/.../lexisnexis.aspx