Swimming Australia Ltd, the federation for the Dolphins and the world's No2 swim nation, has confirmed that it did not seek advice or permission from FINA before telling its swimmers that they could wear the Aussie version of the Speedo FS-Pro that was rejected by the international federation under suit rules that came into force on January 1 this year. The background to that story here and here and here.
In response to questions from SwimNews, SAL states that while it did not consult FINA before deciding to allow the rejected Aussie FS-Pro to be worn by seniors until tomorrow, July 31, and juniors "for the foreseeable future", it did consult widely at home. "This was a decision that was discussed widely with our states and members. However, it was made clear that any records broken in non-FINA approved suits would not be ratified," says the SAL response.
Next month, the federation's board will meet to discuss what to do about the junior suit that is also absent from the FINA list of approved suits for 2010.
SAL explained its actions thus: "This was a decision put in place to ensure age group swimmers in particular, competing at our open and age nationals, were not inconvenienced at all if they had already purchased FS Pro suits or similar for the long course season over the summer. As both of our major long course national championships, Open and Age, occurred shortly after the new FINA regulations were put in place this by-law was very much a transitional by-law, and therefore was only allowed until the end of July at Open level. At age level, this by-law will be discussed at the August board meeting. Another contributing factor was the lack of availability in January of FINA approved suits to the Australian swimming public."
The last part of that response is telling: availability continues to be an issue on suits at certain times, just as it was in 2008, 2009 and indeed at Roberval for the Open Water worlds this month as confusion reigned over the dates by which suits were approved for use and then added to the approvals list and whether suits with zippers could or could not (the answer is that they could not) be worn.
Asked if the same reasoning used for the Aussie Speedo FS-Pro (US and Japanese versions are not the same and were approved by FINA) was applied to suits of others brands Down Under, SAL said: "Yes, at a junior level non-FINA approved suits were allowed as long as they met the criteria in our by-laws ... which are listed below in CBL 14.2."
FINA has told SwimNews that it would look into the matter of how a suit rejected by the international federation ended up being worn with the permission of one of its member federations. Meanwhile, President of FINA, Dr Julio Maglione, in a forthcoming interview with the FINA Magazine, has hinted that the international federation wishes to exert more control over its members in terms of instructions to ensure that the rules of the sport are followed by all members in the common interest of fair play.
