I started a similar poll before,but time has changed things and I thought since USMS is going to have to do something definitive so they should have some input from the forumites
Chris, thanks for all the updates and for being so responsive to comments on this thread.
As a "so-called purist" (and we are only "so-called" that by people who intend it as a derisive term), I hate the compromise. But I like the compromise about a million times more than permitting the continued use of the "tech suits". If my choices were either to keep the tech suits or take the compromise option, it's a easy choice for me. I think most of the "performance enhancers" out there would similarly choose the compromise over the FINA "elite" standard. That's what makes it a good compromise.
With regards to the arguments I have read for keeping the tech suits, I think the tech suits were as much a "loophole" that got out of control as the whole "two suits" phenomenon. I think most people agree that the technology overwhelmed FINA and they let through more suits than they really wanted. They opened pandora's box with the LZR and didn't shut it before the B70s and the Jakeds and the Arena X-Glides got through. The "suit ban" is just a matter of putting everything back into pandora's box and shutting it. This is as hard to do as the fable makes it out and many people are obviously very upset about it.
I'm sure everyone realizes that the only honest reason the "performance enhancers" want to continue to use the "tech suits" is that they are enamored with the times they have swum in them. They don't want their times to be 1-2 seconds slower per hundred (or more). They don't favor suit stacking or wetsuits because they have never competed in them and don't realize how much, if at all, faster those things would make them.
Conversely, the only honest reason the "purists" favor the ban is that the suits allow people to go faster than they otherwise humanly could. For years, suit technology was about reducing the drag caused by having to wear a suit at all (which we do for modesty above all other reasons). Purists want to return to the time when the suits did not make people go faster than they could naturally because purists do not think that the sport should be about the "technology".
Chris, thanks for all the updates and for being so responsive to comments on this thread.
As a "so-called purist" (and we are only "so-called" that by people who intend it as a derisive term), I hate the compromise. But I like the compromise about a million times more than permitting the continued use of the "tech suits". If my choices were either to keep the tech suits or take the compromise option, it's a easy choice for me. I think most of the "performance enhancers" out there would similarly choose the compromise over the FINA "elite" standard. That's what makes it a good compromise.
With regards to the arguments I have read for keeping the tech suits, I think the tech suits were as much a "loophole" that got out of control as the whole "two suits" phenomenon. I think most people agree that the technology overwhelmed FINA and they let through more suits than they really wanted. They opened pandora's box with the LZR and didn't shut it before the B70s and the Jakeds and the Arena X-Glides got through. The "suit ban" is just a matter of putting everything back into pandora's box and shutting it. This is as hard to do as the fable makes it out and many people are obviously very upset about it.
I'm sure everyone realizes that the only honest reason the "performance enhancers" want to continue to use the "tech suits" is that they are enamored with the times they have swum in them. They don't want their times to be 1-2 seconds slower per hundred (or more). They don't favor suit stacking or wetsuits because they have never competed in them and don't realize how much, if at all, faster those things would make them.
Conversely, the only honest reason the "purists" favor the ban is that the suits allow people to go faster than they otherwise humanly could. For years, suit technology was about reducing the drag caused by having to wear a suit at all (which we do for modesty above all other reasons). Purists want to return to the time when the suits did not make people go faster than they could naturally because purists do not think that the sport should be about the "technology".
