Some Aging Competitors Call High-Tech Swimsuits Dirty Pool

Seriously, my bill for 5 days at Indy was ginormous. :afraid: Much much worse than my suit bill. Further random comments just for Midas: 1. I swam slower in my Jaked than my old B70 except in one event. 2. Cost is not a very compelling reason to me for adults. However, I have always said that age groupers should be regulated apart from open champs meets. 3. I don't give a toss about poor Mr. Phelps competing in a LZR. 4. The "it's because of the suit" argument is just the newest of the "its because of the ______ arguments. 5. The fastest people will still be the hardest workers (like CS or KPN) despite GoodSmith's stupid elitist "some are taking it too seriously" remarks. 6. No way does the suit give anything close to the time differences between Mann and Evans. Jeez, rolls eyes. 7. Tech suits don't last longer than a year. 8. This reporter tried to contact me twice, and I missed her calls. I wish I had spoken to her. Maybe the article wouldn't have been quite so ridiculously slanted. Offhand, I recall only one throwaway pro-suit quote from Rowdy ... And, sigh, "dirty" is just another word for "immoral" or wrong. :bitching::bitching::bitching: Why is this stuff for me! :bitching: I'm with you on points 2 (with respect to costs--I think we should all be governed by the same rules), 3, 5 and 6. My B70 lasted for well over a year so I can't agree with you there (that's the true beauty of the suit IMHO), but maybe you swim way more meets that I do. On point 1 I think the B70 and Jaked are probably pretty close in terms of performance enhancing capability (though the jaked does have slightly more rubberized material, so my guess is you had an "off" day. That leaves point 4 as our one point of disagreement. My problem with point 4 is the blank used to get filled in with "PEDs". I don't know what else gets filled in there.... Nobody can *really* complain about an athlete that trains smarter/harder/better or even one that is more physically gifted. Well they can, but unlike with the suits I think the majority of folks reject the legitimacy of that complaint...

Here's a follow-up to the WSJ article on the SCAQ blog: http://scaq.blogspot.com/ Clay is distressed that the Wall Street Journal article portrayed him a "sore loser" or was trying to diminish Michael Mann's swims. Here is a response from Clay Evans that he wanted me to publish: A couple more words on the swim suit topic and the WSJ article today: I would like to apologize to Michael Mann. The article made it appear that I believed I could have won had if I had worn a better suit. That is so far from true. Mr. Mann could have beaten me in his sweatsuit and I had on his tech suit. I applaud his efforts and his talent. "Good job Michael". I am sorry that this controversy and the notoriety has possibly blemished your outstanding swims. Keep it up! Not really that sore a sport, Clay

First: Why should we change the rules, which affect everyone, in order to protect "the greatest swimmer in the world" from the consequences of poor business judgment? We shouldn't. Phelps was merely one example. These suits have a rich history of not being available to everyone. Last year at NCAAs only Auburn had the Jaked. When the LZR first came out it was very difficult to get. Brett Hawke had an interview on floswimming where he discussed how Cesar Cielo--who ended up winning the gold medal--didn't get ahold of a LZR until just before his race in Beijing. There are numerous other examples. OK, you could certainly argue that if availability is the problem then why not set better rules to address that. Yeah, perhaps, but why not just set a standard for suit design and materials where we really don't have to worry about these things? Yes, we could all swim faster if fins and paddles were allowed, too, but would that be good for the sport?

I saw that this morning, checked Clay Evans time in the 200IM and 400IM, and just about coughed up my breakfast cereal. Clay and the author seem to think that the tech suits are worth more than 1 minute and 9 seconds advantage in the 400IM and 33 seconds in the 200IM. Maybe most of Mike's advantage over Clay is that he currently works a lot harder at his swimming and fitness than Clay. Mike could have worn a drag suit and Clay could have worn an Arena X-Glide and Mike probably still would have won by 20 plus seconds in the 400IM. Mike probably does sets of 400IMs on intervals in practice as fast as Clay's meet time. Sure, the suit is an advantage, but come up with a better example please. I know that Clay is an ex-Olympian and all and I am just a hack, but he should spend some more time in the pool before he is quoted in a national newspaper so it looks like he has a legitimate complaint. Tim

I was thinking the same thing, but maybe we should give Clay the benefit of the doubt. He stated that he thinks the suits are cheating, not that he would have had any chance against Michael Mann had they both been wearing the same suit. As Tim alluded to, Mann swam a 2:21.92 in the 200 IM versus 2:53.86 for Evans. In the 400 IM it was 5:04.07 for Mann, 6:13.08 for Evans.

I say ban all prefixes before the word "Olympian." Jim Thornton, non-Olympian

George Bush and Bill Clinton are still referred to as President Bush and President Clinton, we know when they served. According to Ms. Manners, this is incorrect. There is only one President of the United States at any time. Upon leaving office, the former president's title reverts to a previously held one, e.g. Governor, Senator, Mister, etc. This protoclol is frequently disregarded by the media

Cost had nothing to do with the ban. Speedo was eclipsed by other manufacturers, which is when the tech suit "problem" surfaced (pun intended). Now the company may rightfully take back its place at the top of the swimming world. Exactly how I feel too. I have to believe a lot of the decisions FINA made were made with SPeedo's interests in mind. Bowman and Schubert throw up a stink about the tech suit problem when the arenas and the jakeds and the b70s were allowed in competition, after praising the lzr months before as the new direction for swimming. Now as you point out, speedo can reassert it's dominance in the suit world.

Cost had nothing to do with the ban. Speedo was eclipsed by other manufacturers, which is when the tech suit "problem" surfaced (pun intended). Now the company may rightfully take back its place at the top of the swimming world. I think you're wrong. I think there were a lot of prominent coaches (not getting paid by Speedo) that hated the suits because they played havoc on their budgets. I'm sure there were plenty of parents of age groupers who felt the same way. I'm sure those people had a say in the ban. Whether cost SHOULD have been an issue for anybody is a different question. It shouldn't have been. But Speedo could not have gotten this through by itself, and it wasn't just the "purists" who made up the balance of the anti-suit lobby. Boy has this thread gone off the rails!

I have seen countless references in newspapers and magazines to "ex-Olympians". Are all the journalists and editors wrong? Ex-Olympian has no negative meaning, it just means someone that competed in the Olympics in the past (which is quite an accomplishment). How exactly should someone refer to an person that formerly competed in the Olympics? Should you always call them an Olympian and designate the Olympics/year/event/placing (medals)? Please help me with the proper way to reference a person that formerly competed in the Olympics for future posts so I can avoid offending anyone since there are a handful of forumites that are "Olympians". I do sincerely apologize to anyone that was offended by my thoughtless references to "ex-Olympian", but I was more concerned about proper tense at the time and didn't want to confuse anyone that Michael Mann beat a current Olympian by a minute and 9 seconds in a 400IM. Tim Tim: Gail Roper explains this best in the 5th post of the link below on Olympian Masters, like a doctor's degree. Olympian Masters ? - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums