FINA is on the cusp of killing off the equipment-based sport that replaced a technique-based sport in February 2008 but performance-enhancing devices will dominate events at the 13th world championships in Rome this July before a much tougher regime comes into force from January 1, 2010.

D-Day will wait no longer for FINA's three-man executive as they meet in Lausanne tomorrow: the only way out of the suits crisis is a complete return to permeable textile suits and the banning of all non-textile, non-permeable fabrics from January 1, 2010. That much became patently clear in a presentation in Lausanne today by Prof Jan-Anders Manson, head of the independent suit testing team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, alongside Jean-Pierre Morand and Cornel Marculescu, respectively the lawyer and executive director for FINA.

Rome 2009 will be gunslingers' territory as far as suits are concerned. FINA will not now change course for this summer and the likes of the Jaked01 and the arena X-Glide, unmodified, may yet make it back into the race pool after retesting looks at the issue of air-trapping when the suit is stretched as it would be on the body of a racing swimmer. 

Four suit makers had already talked to Prof Manson about suits rejected last week, while 12 other makers will meet the head of the independent process next week, some with a view to understanding the modifications they need to make, others with a view to explaining why they feel their suits should not have been rejected and should still be added to the approved suits list unmodified.

It was close to lunchtime, after a 9am start at the Lausanne Palace Hotel, when Cornel Marculescu  held up his hands in resignation, sighed and told a small group of journalists, mainly from France, Italy and Japan: "We cannot achieve everything ... This is a transitional period. We will do the right thing for swimming. Rome will be part of the process but if the suits are still being written about in January next year as they are now, then you can shoot us. We will deserve that. Our job is not easy. I believe in the near future it will be like doping: your first sentence will criticise us and your second sentence will applaud us because the suits will not be an issue any more."

"We are here to cut the cancer out," said Marculescu. FINA had not opted for "surgery now" but for a remedial, transitory treatment. [later update to file: the director later clarified what he had intended to mean in that "cancer" remark: he was attempting to explain why FINA could not simply remove all fast suits overnight, that it was not "as simple as cutting the cancer out straight away". SwimNews is happy to clarify that point for the director, after having listened back to a tape in which three references to cancer are made. Mr Marculescu's clarification makes clear that he meant:  this is not like a cancer that can be cut out immediately; it is a cancer that requires longer-term treatment; but make no mistake, the aim is to kill the cancer].

The director said that those working on a solution that would "continue to narrowing of the tunnel" to a lasting solution had been tireless in their efforts. He admitted to having had sleepless nights over the issue. Pointing to the amount of testing and myriad testing possibilities, Marculescu added: "It's a crazy area all of this ... the professor cannot control this. We cannot solve everything at once. After Beijing ... why did we interfere? Because we had understood that technology needs to be controlled." Asked how he felt the world championships in Rome would pan out, he replied: "Probably it is going to be a challenge". The FINA executive that will meet tomorrow to discuss, among other things, the 2010 suits regime, was not due to arrive in Lausanne until this afternoon and did not, therefore, meet the media.

FINA's key "weapon" in the battle to have results regarded as credible and fair in Rome was "availability: all suit makers had to ensure that all suits would be available to all swimmers who asked for one during racing in Rome. It was "the very best we can do at this time," said Marculescu.

But while FINA will stick to its phased solution on suits out of respect for suit makers, manufacturers should make the most of what is likely to be their last summer of selling non-textile, non-permeable suits to the elite race market, if the strong hints being dropped to the media are to be trusted. Though there was reluctance and ultimately refusal to spell it out, pending the final say of the FINA executive (president Mustapha Larfaoui, treasurer Julio Maglione and hon sec Bartolo Consolo) on whose shoulders ultimate responsibility rests, 100% permeability and more besides will  take swimming back to 2007 in 2010 - and domestic federations will be obliged to enforce new suit rules in all competitions, in the same way that the backstroke turn rule or the start rule applies to all events.

A decision on 2010 was expected any day now because suit makers, swimmers, coaches and federations needed to prepare for a different world after Rome 2009. "The suit makers need to know as soon as possible because November 1 is the next submission date for approval of 2010 suits," said Marculescu. He denied that one suit maker was being favoured over another. The regime for all suit makers would be a "tough" one in 2010. FINA had concluded that strong support for a technique sport was the only way of avoiding further chaos and confusion.

Asked about the freedom of swimmers to wear whatever they liked - even the Jaked01 and arena X-Glide - in domestic events, such as the Mare Nostrum, Italian trials and the Paris Open - Marculescu said: "The current suit rules apply only to FINA competitions. It is up to federations to do what they like. That can happen only in this transitional period." He emphasised "for one season only: until autumn 2009", after which a new suit rule would be applied universally, one that has not yet been finalised but would go well beyond the conditions set out in the Dubai Charter.

One of the most poignant moments of the morning was when Prof Manson clicked "next" on his overhead projector and the large display screen beamed back an image that summed up the suits crisis: to the right, Alex Popov in briefs and ready to race, his physique greyhound-like, his washboard abdominal muscles striking in appearance, and to the left a photo of Fred Bousquet getting ready to race in his red-hot poker Jaked at French trials. The image showed a tale of two sports: here we have a "technique sport", said Prof Manson, pointing to Popov's stomach, and here we have "the covering up of the body surface" that had made swimming "an equipment-based" sport.

Next slide, a list of the "problems" that the 2008-2009 generation of suits had introduced to the race pool: buoyancy (angle buoyancy included but not considered in suit testing in time for  Rome 2009), negation of hydrodynamic resistance and issues related to physiology, including the construction of suits that served like a second, fast-skin by creating a new body contour for the wearer. Prof Manson posted a part-work in progress that looked at several sports and compared the different levels of "progress" on clock or in distance in equipment-based sports and technique sports. While swimming had consistently  witnessed a gain on the clock of between 0.75% and 1% across each four-year Olympic cycle in the past (compared to a figure closer to 2% in 2008 and the same so far in 2009), equipment-base sports charted between 2% and more than 10% performance gains in a 4-year period.

"Of course, it is possible for swimming to test for all things, to use lasers and body scanners before and after races - but is that really where swimming wants to go? I think not. But that is not for me to decide," said Prof Manson, whose work has not only not been in vain but has left FINA in no doubt as to the decision it now faces.

Prof Manson started his presentation by noting that technological advances in the worlds of aviation, where safety was paramount, took 10 years of testing before being rolled out. "In sport, it is much quicker. That can be good for sport but we should be aware, we should be careful. He then noted the huge difference between expected progress over a four-year-cycle in equipment-based sport and in technique-based sport. The Lotus bike on the track had produced a 14% gain on the clock after many decades of a an average of 1% gain in the 1-hour world record. That had lead authorities to create two kinds of record: the best bike effort and the best human effort. "Is that the road swimming wants to go down?" he asked. "I think probably not. Technology cannot be stopped but you can decide what you want."

He added: "Fully permeable suits is the right direction to go."

Providing a glimpse of the 2010 future for suit testing, Prof Manson demonstrated how a sponge absorbs water and then explained the forces required to squeeze the air out of water to produce a level of saturation. Current buoyancy tests do not cater for the difference in air-retentive qualities in fabrics at different phases in a race. For example, what happens in the first critical 2-3 seconds of a race, the glide phase out of the start, has not yet been taken into consideration. But it will be in 2010.

A graph showing the Newton forces at work when four different suits were placed in the vacuum pump machine that forces air through fabric made one thing clear: not one of the suits behaved in the same way. The playing field is far from being level. A lycra suit was placed on the machine devised by the ski federation (FIS) and proved itself to be fully permeable. There were no 2008-09 suit fabrics at hand to show the vast change that has occurred in the race pool over the past 16 months.

The presentation today, after a shift of venue from the Ecole Polytecnique Federal de Lasusanne to the Lausanne Palace Hotel, started with an introduction by Marculescu that concluded: "We have an impossible mission and I am not Tom Cruise. We know what the things are that we have to do. We have an industry, we have investments". Suit makers, "swimmers, coaches, technical commitees and everybody possible in the family" had been consulted about making suitable suit rules. "Thank you for putting swimming in the [headlines]. We prefer to be in the news for our athletes, stars, Phelps, the medals, because we think we have great athletes," said the director before nodding to the permeability testing machine borrowed from the world of skiing that would help to deliver swimming back to swimmers in 2010. 

Morand, a laywer who has played a masterstroke or two in the anti-doping war for FINA, explained the background to the current suits crisis by reminding the gathering that the "issue" dated back to 2000 with the big bodysuit cover up. In 2005 "the armoured suit" entered the sport and a rule had to be imposed to tell suit makers to make garments with one flat surface and suits that followed the body contour. At that time, he said, the "basic philosophy of FINA on equipment was that it should put in a frame that did not effect the [nature] of the sport". Next along came the issues raised by the 2008 generation of suits led by the Speedo LZR, such as buoyancy. There was no provision in the rule book to deal with that, he noted, sticking to the line that rule SW10.7 that no device "may aid speed, buoyancy or endurance" does not apply to swim suits, even though the swim suit had clearly become a device.

Morand noted that, while perception, feelings and statistics may have pointed to a problem, FINA and manufacturers needed "measurable dimensions", or quantifiable science. The transitory regulation of the Dubai Charter had stemmed from that search for answers but solutions could not be permanent given that there was so much to learn, he indicated. "We had to find a solution that was not just based on feelings but on science that told us what we need to know," he added. "There will be stricter rules in 2010 and some things that are there now will not be there in 2010 and everyone needs to understand that." Thickness of material and buoyancy had been tackled in 2009 so far, while permeability was the next big battle front, he indicated.