What should USMS do about the suits?

Okay, I have an update from Convention about the suits. The FINA Masters Technical Committee is meeting Sept 25-26. USMS decided to send a recommendation (thru our umbrella organization USAS) and it was due this morning. The recommendation was, I believe, crafted by the USMS Rules Committee. To sum up: -- textile only (to be defined later, I guess) -- same coverage for men and women: knees to shoulder, no sleeves or neck -- zippers allowed -- limits of thickness (0.8mm) and buoyancy (0.5N) and permeability of material (80L/m^2/s) Here is the process. The FINA committee might accept this, might amend it, might disregard it, or whatever. Then somebody in USMS (I think the Board of Directors and the Rules Committee, but I might have that wrong) will decide whether to accept FINA's ruling and when to implement it. Implementation will probably be sooner rather than later (ie, certainly before SCY nationals, perhaps even before the end of the year). They won't wait until next Convention, for example. The suit itself isn't what I would have chosen -- I am okay with zippers but not with bodysuits for men -- but at this point I am mostly concerned with the process itself. At no point did the House of Delegates have an opportunity to discuss or vote on anything, nor will they if the process I described is how it works out. In the pre-convention packet, there was basically no mention of the suits, for example. A relatively small number of people will make this decision for USMS without formal feedback from the hoi polloi. Some of this is probably because of the timing of FINA's meeting. (Before the meeting, I had thought that the HOD would at least have some voice in the nature of USMS' recommendation.) One of the Rules Committee members I talked to had an interesting comment about FINA. He said that they regard masters swimming as a completely different sport from "regular" swimming, just like diving and water polo and synchro swimming (and yes, open water swimming) are different sports. This is their mentality in approaching regulations for masters and OW swimming.

Okay, I have an update from Convention about the suits. The FINA Masters Technical Committee is meeting Sept 25-26. USMS decided to send a recommendation (thru our umbrella organization USAS) and it was due this morning. The recommendation was, I believe, crafted by the USMS Rules Committee. To sum up: -- textile only (to be defined later, I guess) -- same coverage for men and women: knees to shoulder, no sleeves or neck -- zippers allowed -- limits of thickness (0.8mm) and buoyancy (0.5N) and permeability of material (80L/m^2/s) Here is the process. The FINA committee might accept this, might amend it, might disregard it, or whatever. Then somebody in USMS (I think the Board of Directors and the Rules Committee, but I might have that wrong) will decide whether to accept FINA's ruling and when to implement it. Implementation will probably be sooner rather than later (ie, certainly before SCY nationals, perhaps even before the end of the year). They won't wait until next Convention, for example. The suit itself isn't what I would have chosen -- I am okay with zippers but not with bodysuits for men -- but at this point I am mostly concerned with the process itself. At no point did the House of Delegates have an opportunity to discuss or vote on anything, nor will they if the process I described is how it works out. In the pre-convention packet, there was basically no mention of the suits, for example. A relatively small number of people will make this decision for USMS without formal feedback from the hoi polloi. Some of this is probably because of the timing of FINA's meeting. (Before the meeting, I had thought that the HOD would at least have some voice in the nature of USMS' recommendation.) One of the Rules Committee members I talked to had an interesting comment about FINA. He said that they regard masters swimming as a completely different sport from "regular" swimming, just like diving and water polo and synchro swimming (and yes, open water swimming) are different sports. This is their mentality in approaching regulations for masters and OW swimming.