Some of the world's leading swimmers are considering how to protest against the use of fast suits that deliver an unlevel playing field while being forced to wear the devices if they wish to remain competitive at the world championships in Rome.
Those who have contacted SwimNews asked for one condition to be observed when reporting some of the ideas that are floating around the race pool right now:
- Anonymity: because they do want this to be about individuals but about a general consensus among some in the pool and would not like to see any swimmers on any side of the debate, or those who wish to remain neutral while they have a job to get on with in Rome, used as pawns by FINA, suit makers, media or anyone else, whatever their view.
SwimNews understands that stance and agrees with it. Just as swimmers have their job to do, so does the media. So, for clarity: any swimmer who emerges from a race in which they have made a great improvement, won a medal, set a "record" and indicates that there is no issue with the suits and that what just happened was entirely down to them and their work can expect to have their story reported in that light. The suits are truly significant and skew the result sheet. Of that there is no doubt and the swimming world needs no science to prove it. The result sheet and changes to the world rankings in the past 17 months have already done that - in abundance.
There is a gulf between the stance of a German sprint queen last week and the stance earlier in the year of a French sprinter and his coach. The answer to those who say the suit is not significant will always be the same: so wear something else, something from 2007, say, in Rome, and show us how good you are. That would command respect and be worthy of genuine celebration for any clean athlete and programme.
Swimmers are in a hard place but many understand that while they will wear what they must wear to remain competitive this performance-enhanced summer, the suit is likely to take the sheen off anything they achieve at the moment. That is where FINA has placed the swimmer and it should hang its head for having done so. The latest world record to fall was a case in point. How to celebrate a world record when it must be viewed in the context of what was being worn and the sizeable progress of an athlete who would be regarded with suspicion in other circumstances had he wiped the kind of margin off his best times that he has wiped off of late wearing a Jaked01? Wildeboer is far from being alone. He is more visible because his best was a "world record". Had the sorts of margins of improvement we are seeing in the race pool this year unfolded in 1998 in China, the world of swimming, including many of those who support fast suits and want more of the same nonsense, would have cried havoc.
Which leaves swimming in a place where Aschwin Wildeboer's "achievement", which owes something to hard work and much else, of course, is tainted by the 'legal' circumstances in which the swimmer swam. Here is what happened in June and July to the Spanish swimmer:
In Monaco three weeks ago, straight after a bout of altitude training (and in the first 3-5 days after descent, the science and stats tell us, work capability is usually high, with swimmers struggling between days 6 and 10 before climbing out of the 'hole' ready for the big event), Wildeboer raced in what was allowed on FINA's May 19 approved-suits list. Wearing far less than his 100% poly Jaked01, he clocked:
- 55.58, 100m
- 2:03.72 200m
An expert observer writes: "His swimming then was looking very mediocre both in terms of technique and power".
At Mediterranean Games in Jaked01:
- 52.36 'wr'; 100m (3.22sec or about 6m difference over 100m in 3 weeks)
- 1.54.96 (8.76sec or about 16m difference over 200m in 3 weeks).
As the expert asks: "Suit? Altitude training? Combined effect of both?" We may never know but what we can say is that the suit is truly significant to the result, so how can we celebrate a time that goes beyond what went before when we cannot compare what Wildeboer did in Pescara to what Peirsol did in Beijing and what Peirsol did in Melbourne, all in just over two years. Not ancient history, not Rouse or Naber or Matthes or Thiele or Kiefer etc. Two years, same generation.
So, at the end of a week or so of more hollow rewriting of swimming history, with world records set and world rankings further contorted, first in Berlin then in Pescara, and with all eyes now turning to Indianapolis and the US trials at which Americans will, supposedly, have access to almost all devices available, we consider:
A few of the first ideas that some world-class swimmers and coaches are pondering for Rome.
- 1. Use a ribbon, wrist band or sticker when you step up for every race to show that you want a return to textile suits, pre-2008 style, and for those who want to go that far a specific colour for briefs and hip to shoulder suits. Such peaceful statements of support are commonplace and effective across the world on a universe of issues, from support for research into breast cancer to stating opposition to war. For swimmers it would represent a strong visual protest without hurting swimmers. Indeed, if used with a explanatory statement on the eve of racing in Rome, such simple symbolism - which broadcasters would feel obliged to explain from time to time - could even help swimmers to avoid the worst of the media gauntlet now in prospect at the Foro Italico.
- 2. Laure Manaudou did it for love: she drew a heart on the palm of her hand so that every time she waved to the crowd and acknowledged her team after winning or breaking a record, she reminded everyone of her affection for a certain Italian swimmer. Water under the bridge. But the visual effectiveness of what Manaudou did scored 10/10: it was picked up by a vast number of TV stations, papers and magazines across Europe.
- 3. Wear briefs and shoulder to hip suits. This suggestion is only for the very brave or sure of self who are prepared to be present in Rome and yet not really be in the race. The likes of Natalie Coughlin and Leisel Jones may look back on their absence this summer with true relief. They do not have to play the game of the lost summer. The game of briefs can be played as long as those who play it fully realise that they are in for a hiding. Such a protest worked very effectively in Rijeka, when Thomas Rupprath and Helge Meeuw, of Germany, wore briefs in a backstroke sprint final and showed just how much of a difference the fast suits make on the glide phase out of start and turns. They proved that they were at a serious disadvantage. Less obvious is the difference from bodysuit to bodysuit - but that difference is there, without a shadow of a doubt, as proved by the statistics garnered by Prof Jan-Anders Manson at the Swiss Technology of Institute: statistics that were not considered by FINA when attempting to appease suit makers while working towards restoring sanity to the race pool, a goal that remains a very long way off.
And here are two suggestions from readers for FINA:
Offer BIG prize money for a special award to the swimmer who sets a world record in a "traditional" suit, meaning briefs for men, shoulder to hips for women and all made of "textile", as worn anytime until Melbourne 2007?
Offer BIG prize money for a special award to the swimmer who gets past any world record that stood on January 31, 2008, while wearing a "traditional" suit, meaning briefs for men, shoulder to hips for women and all made of "textile", as worn anytime until Melbourne 2007?
