Only three and a bit days into the Olympic swimming programme and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that we are seeing a quantum leap in swimming performances. The problem is that it has little to do with the swimmers.World records have been broken with staggering regularity and by no small margin, either. In the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay, records fell in the heats with only the “B” teams competing. Whereas a world record used to be a rare and remarkable thing, now it is a disappointment if one isn’t broken.
So far, there have been 11 world records broken at the Beijing Games and we're only just over a third of the way through the programme. In Athens, only six world records were broken in the entire programme. The records aren’t just being eclipsed, either. In the final of the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay, the pre-Olympics world record was beaten by four seconds and eclipsed by the first six teams in the final.
The reason for these seemingly brilliant performances has nothing to do with some remarkable training breakthrough or even performance-enhancing drugs. No, the improvement is all due to new technology swimsuits; the king of which is the Speedo LZR fast suit.
The science behind these suits is interesting. They were designed in conjunction with NASA and are reported to reduce drag by up to 5 per cent over the previous Fastskin suits and up to nearly 40 per cent improvement over a traditional lycra suit. Not only are the materials space-age, the actual cut of the suits is also designed to change the shape of the athlete's body, presumably squashing any sticky-out bits that cause extra drag. They even look fast.
Not that Speedo have it all their own way. Mizuno, TYR, Arena, and Asics have all released their versions of the new improved suits, but it is Speedo who have cornered the publicity.
There has been a bit of controversy surrounding the suits. Many, including Australia’s former Olympic champion Duncan Armstrong, believe that the suits contravene FINA’s swimwear regulations. The regulation states: “No swimmer shall be permitted to use or wear any device that may aid speed, buoyancy or endurance during a competition”. It’s hard to see how these suits aren’t in breach.
Others, like Munich Olympics superstar Mark Spitz, actually try to argue that the suits are slowing athletes down. According to Spitz, unless swimmers can reach 6 to 6.5mph the suits don’t work properly. While this may have been true for the first generation of Fastskin suits, the evidence suggests that he’s wrong for the LZR.
The suits are available to anyone who wants them, so it is not a case of individuals gaining an unfair advantage. The only real downside is the cheapening of world records. A world record should go to a truly remarkable athlete, swimmers like Spitz, Janet Evans, Ian Thorpe, Inge de Bruijn or Phelps.
The suits alone cannot turn a poor swimmer to an Olympic medalist, but they can seemingly help take an excellent swimmer into the exceptional bracket, and that is unfair to those who have gone before. The suits won’t change the results, but will make some swimmers seem better than they really were.
It is difficult to argue against progress, but there is something to be said for honest competition between individuals based on their skills and strengths alone, not as a result of superior technology.
Perhaps they could go back to competing nude as they did at the original games. It would make the swimming and track events more interesting but, on the other hand, the weightlifting would be positively terrifying. Maybe that’s not such a good idea after all.
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