Once bitten, twice shy, lesson learned. FINA is staying true to the whisper put out in November last year, that if there are not enough of the new track-start-style starting blocks in use around the world by the time nations start to run trials for Rome 2009 world titles, they conventional blocks will be used in the Eternal City in July.
The rumour took on wings when the matter was raised at FINA Technical Committee level last weekend. The view was that if availability was a problem, then the recommendation to the FINA Bureau meeting in March would be: put the plans to use the removable back wedge on the new block on hold.
Now the news is confirmed, today, by Nicole Jeffery over at The Australian, who notes that "technological advances continue to muddy the waters of international competition".
Omega's new block has been approved and is officially on course for a Rome 2009 official championship launch. But production delays and distribution setbacks mean that a fair few world-class swimmers will not have had a fair run off the new platform in time for July.
As with fast suits and wet suits, and the issues of buoyancy raised by events in 2008, the new blocks could deliver an unlevel playing field - and FINA is ready to respond this time round.
Jeffery notes that none of the new blocks have been installed in Australia yet but says that national head coach Alan Thompson had expected them to be in place for trials next month at the Sydney Aquatic Centre.
"There's not an enormous amount of availability of these blocks, so FINA is doing an audit to see who's got what," Thompson told The Australian. "If there's not enough availability, they could be cancelled for Rome."
That would rely on a decision at the March meeting of the FINA Bureau in Dubai, the same meeting at which the international body will deliver at least an initial verdict on suits and what can and cannot be worn, and in which direction the approvals process is heading in order to deliver professional, independent testing that restores confidence and fairness to what has become an unlevel techno playing field that chief judges and others simply cannot cope with.
The good news for Omega is that the new blocks come with a removable wedge (that delivers the track-start feel to it all), so those who order the new block will have old and new models all in one and can adapt to the timing of events.
Jeffery reveals that Grant Stoelwinder, coach to Eamon Sullivan and Libby Trickett, among others has been trying, without luck, to get hold of one of the new blocks for practice. If world records holders can't get the block a few months out from Rome, the interests of fair play are not being upheld. Just as they weren't this time last year when the LZR Racer was launched upon a largely unsuspecting world that was forced to play catch up all the way to the blocks in Beijing.
Stoelwinder, critical of suit technology of late, tells the Australian: `It (the new block) creates yet another uncertainty and there's no need for it. They should stop changing the rules. There's nothing wrong with the blocks we have. The new blocks will just assist the people who don't have the flexibility to use the current ones.''
He predicted that Sullivan, who will race 50m and 100m at NSW champs this weekend after having shown good progress in his recovery from a hip operation, would take a long time to adjust to the new block. Body position would be altered by the new angle of drive.
The effect on speed and times is likely to be far less dramatic than that achieved by the generation of buoyancy booster suits that emerged in 2008 but nonetheless, FINA has shown itself to understand the issue: it is not for the international federation to oversee or approve of the introduction of unfairness and unlevel playing fields. Indeed, its role is quite the opposite: standardisation of competition conditions and fairness for all.
