Aussie swim aces have joined the chorus of those calling on FINA to draw a line on world records set in polyurethane and other performance-enhancing suits that will be banned from January 1, 2010.
At the launch of the new Speedo LZR 2010 textile suit in Sydney, Eamon Sullivan, who wet world records over 50 and 100m freestyle while wearing the LZR that will soon be confined to history, told Nicole Jeffery of The Australian that all 2008-09 records should be set aside.
"I definitely think now that the polyurethane suits have gone, to keep the records would be incredibly stupid,'' Sullivan said. "That's the reason for going back to these old suits, the massive drop in times in one year.''
He also told reporters: "Records that should still be standing, from some of the greats, have been embarrassed by these polyurethane suits beating them by so much."
Fly specialist Andrew Lauterstein agreed and looked forward to a brighter future for the sport: "I think this has been a dark year but I think the future looks great. It goes back to the fastest swimmer wins. I think it will change the image of the sport. With the suits everyone looked like robots and no-one could see the hard work we did to get up and race fast. Now we will be able to see who is fit and who is not fit.''
Olympic champion Libby Trickett stood shoulder-to-shoulder with teammates who do not wish to have all they do seen in the context of a suit. The 2010 rules will help things along, while Trickett hoped that the sport, media and public could judge the future in the context of the future without constant comparison to the silly suits era.
"The public and the media need to put things in perspective and not judge and compare this suit to other suits, it's really important not to do that,'' Trickett said.
Comment: Fair too, that thought of Trickett's, given that it will be impossible to compare performances of 2008-09 with those of 2010 just as comparison with 2007 was impossible.
All of which adds up to an inevitable conclusion for FINA as the ruling Bureau prepares to meet in January: draw two lines in the record book, dishonour no-one but, most importantly, leave the past in the past and prepare to celebrate a brighter future in which swimming gets back to regarding performance in the context of hard and smart work of swimmers, coaches and many others who go into honing talent at the heart of a modern elite sports programme and whose work was almost entirely overshadowed in 2008-09.
FINA will consider the issue of world records in the context of a coaching commission recommendation that is well-meaning but misguided in that it wishes to retain the poly records as world records and have a second set of world marks running parallel to the inflated times of 2008-09. That is a sure-fire way of dragging the baggage of the past into the future and ensuring that the media, faced with a start-sheet and result-sheet that lists two sets of records, will compare 2010 to 2008-09. That would be unfair to the swimmers and unworthy of FINA as guardians of a sport in which the interests of the swimmer, with respect to historic continuum, ought to be paramount.
There is a solution to world records that is inclusive for swimmers but excludes the shiny suits from their future, according to the spirit of the votes of FINA, federations, coaches and the views of many leading swimmers around the world who are sick of living in the shadow of their suit.
Some ask why 2008-09 times should be set aside/singled out when they were swum legally. That misses the point entirely. I give you history:
When FINA declared in the 1950s that all world records must be set in pools 50m long, no swimmer who set a record in a 20-yard, 25-yard etc etc pool was dishonoured. But a line was drawn in the best interests of all and in a way that reflected altered race conditions.
This is how history was and is recorded in the official book of world records:
200 'fly women world record
Progression
- 2:42.3 Tineke Lagerberg NED Naarden 12.12.56
- 2:38.1 Tineke Lagerberg Naarden 19.3.57
- New rules: world records only recognised in 50-metre pools
- 2:40.5 Nancy Ramey USA Los Angeles 29.6.58
- 2:38.9 Tineke Lagerberg NED Naarden 13.9.58
Note how it got slower at first....no problem.
When FINA recognised world s/c records, it took the world best time in each event and made that the FINA standard time. Anyone who got past that got the record and on it went from there. No problem.
Here is how it would translate to 2010:
Women 200m backstroke progression:
- 2:06.62 Krisztina Egerszegi (HUN) August 25, 1991 Athens, Greece
- January 1, 2008: non-textile suits allowed
- 2:06.39 Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) February 16, 2008 Columbia, Missouri, US
- 2:06.09 Margaret Hoelzer (USA) July 5, 2008 Omaha, Nebraska, USA
- 2:05.24 Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) August 16, 2008 Beijing, China
- 2:04.81 Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) August 1 2009 Rome, Italy
- January 1, 2010: new textile-only suit rules, with profile limits
- 2:06.60 Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) June 2, 2010 Theoryville, USA
The last line is theoretical, of course.
Again, there is no problem and no swimmer is dishonoured and all swimmers would be chasing records set under prevailing race conditions, conditions that are so substantially different to those of 2008-09 that comparison is worthless. If you cannot compare performance on the clock in swimming, swimming loses one of its assets right there.
