athleticintelligenceconsulting.com

A lot of recent discussion in the swimming world has centered on the new suits and their impact on the sport.  World Records have been cheapened; performances have been classed as unbelievable; and worst of all, some athletes are gaining an unfair advantage over others depending on their anthropometric measurements, their suit selection or their economical situation.  If I had to pick one aspect that I dislike the most, it’s the fact that the playing field isn’t level. Regardless of whether technology has turned this sport into a mockery of itself, I could almost live with it if I knew that every athlete gained the same advantage when they put a suit on.  That prior to diving in the pool, the athlete with the best mindset and preparation had the best chance of winning.  That’s not the case today, and we have moved extremely far away from what the Olympic Games are supposed to be about.

However, of all the aspects being discussed, the issue of an awkward conflict of interest seems to have been discussed the least.  The organization that is in part sponsored by manufacturers of the suits in question is attempting to decide what to do about the ‘problem’. Questions have been raised around the world, and petitions have been made to FINA by a number of national bodies and swimming communities. In response, FINA is attempting to solve a problem it failed to see coming a year ago. That should set off alarms, right there.

In our case the pool door isn’t just wide open it’s been ripped off its hinges. How does one roll back the clock on suits without creating a royal mess of the record books? Added to that, what happens to the world ranking and age group ranking individual performances achieved in these suits? Have records been kept of what suits or how many suits were worn in what race? Historically even though FINA acknowledged the issue of illegal substance abuse by East Germany they were against employing asterisks in the record books to denote questionable times. That creates a precedent; one likely to cause a potential dragging of feet when addressing what is self-evidently a pressing issue.

The message is loud and clear: action is needed. But what action is possible? Many National Governing bodies as well as the international body, FINA, receive funding from the manufacturers.  These same manufacturers convinced a very “non technical” FINA committee that their products were legal. If it is now decided that swimming needs to regulate the use of the suits, FINA is essentially left dealing with an unenviable situation.

Many years ago, organizations recognized the fact that policing their own sports when it came to doping issues was a problem. WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) and USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) were formed to manage the process separately from the governing bodies. Such independent regulation freed them up from the politics that inevitably swirl around individual sports and governing bodies and allegations of countries covering up their problems soon declined.

Ironically, many people involved in swimming have referred to the new suits as a form of ‘technical doping’. That only adds to the call to develop an outside organization that can manage the process of ratifying and policing technical equipment independently of FINA. Experience tells us that such regulatory bodies are best funded by sources other than marketing dollars; they need to be shielded from the pressures that marketing and money bring to bear. To me, that is the logical first step.

The central task of the new body should be to return real competition to the swimming pool, events where eight swimmers line up, and the best one wins—this, as opposed to the slope we’re heading down, where eight line up and the swimmer taking advantage of rules and the best technology wins. Imagine what might have happened last summer if, say, Phelps had been saddled in Beijing with a ‘No Tiger clause’ in his suit contract; if he had been restricted to wearing, say, a Nike suit. Not only does the magic touch in the 100 fly not happen but the chances are that Lezak (a Nike athlete) doesn’t overhaul the French on the last lap of the freestyle relay, a truly magical moment in swimming history.

If you look at the effect of suits today they impact the sport in many ways. The suits reduce drag; add buoyancy; stabilize the athlete’s core; improve body connectivity (long axis strokes); improve body balance and give the swimmer a sleeker shape (morphing). The compression of body mass reduces the body’s recognition of fatigue (especially in the legs) and the fabric memory provides propulsion support.That’s a lot of add-on and clearly we’re not yet done with technical innovations.

How does one go about the process of creating a reasonable playing field with all those factors involved? From my simple coaching perspective there could be a few ways to do that.  For a start, we can look at other sports and see how they’ve tackled similar issues. A beginning might be the simple requirement that manufacturers create their designs using the same, regulated fabric. Different designers will, no doubt, be able to gain very small advantages based on paneling or cut, but at least we won’t have the extreme situation we’re dealing with today.

A second requirement might be that the material has a standard buoyancy profile. You do that by restricting everyone to one material and then testing that material extensively in a lab and performance environment. With today’s fabric, you’re unlikely to eliminate all buoyancy effects because the micro-fiber system pretty much repels water. You can, however, limit this effect and standardize it for all manufacturers.

Another area we might want to examine is the use of multiple suits. It’s almost shocking that some athletes have been willing to exploit this loophole for their personal gain, but that’s the effect money and prestige has on performance.  It would be an easy call to ban multiple suits, and pretty easy to regulate at all competitions.

Areas that will be hard to manage are the effects of compression, fabric memory, stability and connectivity. By standardizing the material you’ll limit the effect of cuts or paneling, but you won’t make it perfectly even. Swimmers will still try to race in a “smaller” suit and possibly gain more compression, or fabric propulsion etc, but that might come at a cost in comfort and range of motion.

Although FINA has managed swimming since its inception, there are precedents to creating structures outside of governing bodies in order to create equal playing fields. I hope that the world of swimming understands the position we’re in and moves to bring swimming in line with other sports heavily influenced by technology. I’m hoping that we recognize the need to put athletes and performance standards first, money second. Given that, we can get back to worrying about producing the fastest athletes, and not panicking about whether our athletes are in the fastest suit.  We can get back to watching racing knowing that the best athlete on that day won the race.  It’s the least we can ask for, and without a doubt, the athletes deserve that environment.