Amaury Leveaux (FRA) has taken heart from the removal of some of the fast suits. Beaten into submission at French trials by teammates Fred Bousquet and Alain Bernard when they wore suits that failed to make it on to the list of FINA approved suits on May 19, Leveaux tells L'Equipe today: "I want to be world 50m champion."
That means getting past Bousquet, on 20.94 on the clock and in a Jaked01, now look at wearing, according to French reports this morning, the Speedo LZR in racing on the Mare Nostrum Tour that gets underway in Barcelona today. Lionel Horter, French head coach and personal mentor to Leveaux, talks with fondness of his charge being "24 years of and full of excuses".
Some things in training could have been better, there had been an issue with suits, but Leveaux, who wears TYR, had reassessed, refocussed and would use the Mare Nostrum Tour to "test our progress in terms of training and behaviour". The French nationals in Montpellier had served to "open our eyes", said Horter. A serious heart-to-heart discussion between coach and swimmer had followed a championships at which Leveaux failed to make the grade for the solo 100m in Rome and kept his place in the 50m courtesy of pre-selection. "It's going much better in the water," Leaveaux tells L'Equipe. "I'm maintaining a better position and I have a better feel." Horter adds: "He's a lot more focussed."
Meanwhile, coach to Bousquet Romain Barnier tells the paper he has no idea what the sprinter will wear "but one thing is for sure: everyone will be be wearing equal weapons". Well, no, actually, they won't. There will be a whole range of suits on show. And that will be the case until January 1, 2010, if FINA gets it right by then. What will be worn this summer will serve some better than others and will continue to enhance performance to one degree or another. And that will be the case as long as non-textile, non-permeable suits from the LZR onwards remain in the water, after which there are some fine details to be agreed to ensure that swimming becomes swimming once more and the achievements of athletes and coaches are no longer diminished by the type of suit being worn.
That was the conclusion reached by the head of the independent suit testing team, Prof Jan-Anders Manson, in Lausanne last week, when he said: "Fully permeable suits is the right direction to go."
