"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body". So said Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet and politician. He might have come to it much sooner but the president of FINA, Mustapha Larfaoui, appears to have been pumping some mental iron at last, but has regrettably taken the greatest line of Edith Piaf: Je ne regrette rien (I have no regrets), from 1961, the year before he founded the Algerian Swimming Federation.

The headline in L'Equipe this morning is "We are not going backwards". It sums up the most welcome, belated sentiments and stance of the president of five Olympic aquatic sports on the issue of suits and the havoc they have wreaked in the race pool over the past 16 months because FINA exercised poor vigilance.

The issue has been written about widely. In the past 48 hours alone on the site, the position of FINA, as set out by Cornel Marculescu, director of FINA, is clear in its muddiness: the Jaked01, the arena X-Glide and other 100% non-textile, non-permeable suits of that ilk, may yet make it to the list of FINA approved suits after more test results are delivered by independent tester Prof Jan-Anders Manson on the suits when stretched to simulate "in use" conditions. The question is: do the suits trap air to such an extent that they may be deemed to aid buoyancy.

When L'Equipe reporter Jean-Baptiste Renet asked this about the 100% non-permeables and their exclusion from the approved list on May 19: these models will not be used at the world titles in Rome?

Larfaoui said: "In principle. We are not going back. It is essential that we move on." Later, to the same question, he paused and indicated that "practically all" 100% poly suits would be gone by Rome. It was after the interview had finished and the president that the president sought clarification from the FINA director before returning to the reporter to confirm that the 100% non-permeables may indeed yet make it to Rome, depending on the new data from Prof Manson. That information should have been at Larfaoui's fingertips, of course.

Asked how he saw the current situation in the sport he presides over,  Larfaoui said: "One talks of suits, but I would like one to talk about the swimmers. At the moment, I have the impression that it is purely the suits that are winning. Since we are not experts in materials, we favoured consultation with experts and engage with the whole world of swimming (suit makers, coaches, swimmers) before taking a decision."

He said that removing current fast-fibre suits from the pool and open water was not retrograde: "Going back? No!" he answered when a question was put in a frame of "going back".

Next question: are you aware that swimming has lost its credibility? 

"Not for me [it hasn't]. Whether we see it or not, an athlete is still inside the suit," said the president, who in february this year broke his long silence to say: "With these amendments, FINA shows that it continues to monitor the evolution of the sport’s equipment with the main objective of keeping the integrity of sport."

The two messages sit uncomfortably alongside each other: if all of the current exercise is being conducted to retain integrity, then we must assume that integrity has been lost, or that, at the very least, that integrity is threatened by the arrival of an impostor.

Diplomacy has its place. When a crisis reaches the point at which this one has, it is essential to tell it like it is. So when my colleague Jean-Baptiste noted to the president that Alain Bernard had said that suit material was "exaggerated" and that it served as a buoyancy aid, it was good to read what the head of FINA finally had to state publicly: "Each athlete has their point of view. We hear them through the athletes' commission...Alain Bernard's view is largely shared by athletes."

An athletes' commission led by Janet Evans and including Alex Popov, both opposed to the the use of 2008-09 generation of suits and in full agreement with Bernard's view.

On the question of influence from suit makers, the FINA president - head of an organisation that, courtesy of the ceaseless work of Marculescu, has brought in more than $100m in the past four years - said: "We will not yield to economic pressure".

Larfaoui said that FINA was putting the breaks on "technology". But when asked if he regretted granting Speedo permission to pass with the LZR last year, he replied: "No. We are not experts in materials, and when a problem presented itself, we took all necessary actions". 

 That point is highly debatable. Foresight, Mr president, is what makes for great leadership. FINA should have counted itself among those who saw the storm approaching. At the time, FINA had no suit testing framework in place that could remotely be labelled serious. 

What actions? asked Jean-Baptiste. Mustapha Larfaoui referred him to the meetings that have been held this year. This year! What about last year. What about the Olympic Games, what about all the swimmers whose careers were thrown off course. What about Felcity Galvez and others, for whom 6-8 years of work was washed away by a suit? Where is the apology to those people? And to blueseventy, a partner who heard "yes" one moment and "no" the next, and might yet hear "yes" and then "no" again before the season is out. Do not hold your breath for those apologies to make their way to your ears.

You have no regrets about the suits problem, asks L'Equipe.

"Non," replies a man who until this week had wanted to cling to his presidency in Rome this summer. He appears not to wish to admit to anything that may be perceived as a weakness. His "Non" may soon be put in the context of the speculation doing the rounds today.

FINA had never yielded to economic pressure, said the president. Not even to Speedo? asks Jean-Baptiste. "None whatsoever," says the president.

Not to Jaked? asks Jean-Baptiste.

"I yield to no pressure, wherever it comes from," says Larfaoiu with a battling spirit that has been silent throughout the suits crisis. 

Swimming is in danger, suggests L'Equipe. "No, on the contrary. It is progressing," says the president, who fails to see perhaps that there is danger in a sport with a Japanese national record faster than the world record, with a French national mark swifter than a world record, in the midst of a year in which some all-time 30 best lists carry more than 20 entries from this year when the average turnover of progress would be 2 to 3 new entries in an average year. The danger rest in the threat of mockery, farce, loss of integrity and worst of all the diminishing of hard work and achievement of athletes and coaches, not through what is written but through what is allowed to unfold in the pool under FINA governance.

Is the solution of 2010 a return to textile/paper suits? "In time we will be able to say ... it is up to the technicians to give us their advice." Actually, it is up to FINA to make its mind up: equipment-based or technique-based. Prof Manson has delivered his verdict very clearly. Over to you Mr president.

How could he justify allowing swimmers to wear suits that were now "illegal", asked Jean-Baptiste. "That is their responsibility. But ... they do so at their risk."

Responsibility. Good point. Where does the president see his responsibility, we wonder. He clearly has no intention of saying sorry for a single moment of 16 months of woe and mayhem in his sport, mayhem that could have been avoided, and if not that, could have been dealt with more rapidly and more decisively much sooner. Perhaps the president had mislaid his spectacles for a moment.