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The Progress of Pierse

Mar 15, 2009  - Craig Lord

This file was updated after the original post.

The Dubai Charter may not solve all the woes of 2008 and did not arrived in time to cut out the cancer of fast suits that threatened to kill swimming as we knew it. That much we know.

Annamay Pierse of Canada has added her name to the 2009 world-record books, post, Feb 2008, pre-suits-crisis resolution. Her progress coincides with the advent of the 2008 generation of suits that work in different ways and benefit some more than others. 

No, it is not personal. It is fact. Like it was last year from February 2008 onwards. No-one is questioning the hard and smart work, the self-belief, the striving and much else. Pierse has doubtless done much to achieve what she has achieved, much with a great breaststroke coach, Josef Nagy - which makes the inevitable suit footnote on her performance all the more tragic. But that does not mean that the footnote should not be there.

Pierse wore an LZR. That's the suit that Kosuke Kitajima stated openly and loudly: it boosts performance well beyond the other suits I can get hold of and I want to wear it. The Japanese federation tore contracts to shreds and let the defending champ have his way. He defended well - and how. Faster than ever. Yes, the suits helped. And how. 

Many in swimming continue to question the validity of times in relation to standards that went before. A world record must relate to what went before - yet in swimming at the moment it cannot because the conditions under which the previous and current owners of the standard are significantly different, not because of a change in types and amounts of work, not because of water and pool quality and so on and so forth, but because of the suit being worn by the swimmer, a suit that benefits some more than others. I know of swimmers, specifically women swimmers, who have been told by coaches to pack weight on, put the pounds on, because the suit will work better than way. 

A new regime is on the way but world records continue to be set using suits that made swimming an equipment-based sport, into an era in which what you wear when racing makes a truly significant difference to performance and makes comparison with past generations impossible.

Here are the best 10 times ever from Pierse - who is 26 this year - and the season when she set the times:

  • 2:17.50 2009 (previous season best: 2:23.50)
  • 2:18.59 2009
  • 2:21.69 2009
  • 2:21.90 2009
  • 2:23.08 2009
  • 2:23.50 Feb 2008
  • 2:23.82 2009
  • 2:24.71 2009
  • 2:25.75 Nov 2007
  • 2:26.06 Jan 2008

And season by season:

  • 2:17.50  2009              
  • 2:23.50  2008        
  • 2:27.35  2007  
  • 2:31.02  2006
  • 2:32.48  2005
  • 2:29.56  2004
  • 2:29.65  2002
  • 2:29.11  2001
  • 2:34.59  2000

Those lists speak for themselves. The only time we see an 8-sec gain in the best time of Leisel Jones in her s/c career stems from the period when the swimmer was between 15 and 18 years of age. In 16 months, Pierse, in her mid-twenties, has wiped 8sec off her best in a 200m swim. Hard work accounts for some of that. It does not account for all of it. It is not a problem created by the way swimming is reported. It is a problem created by swimming itself and the acceptance of a set of conditions that ought never to have made it to the race pool.

The problem suits are in the water not just in Canada (a nation that barred the LZR from use for its trials almost a year ago) but everywhere. In Australian and Britain this week we will see whole teams of people qualify for Rome 2009 in a suit that is heading for extensive modification or, indeed, extinction within a year if FINA and Prof Jan-Anders Manson have got their science and process right. Pierse's progress comes under the kind of scrutiny, gets to be singled out, here because her effort is the fastest their ever was. There will be others doing what she has done but rising up the world rankings at a lower level. The suit is legal and some think it should remain so. I beg to differ.

We shall see what March 31 and the results of suit tests at that deadline will deliver. The widespread view is that the LZR will not be affected. That would lead us to certain interpretations, such as: the buoyancy test is not set at the right level; or science already knows what the LZR is doing and will not be called upon to limit that factor until 2010. Pure speculation at this stage, of course, but a valid thought process, as in: if you want to ban - and are serious about banning - drug X because you know it enhances performance, you must identify the nature of that drug and make sure the undesirable nature of it is included on the list of banned substances. If you know what is making a suit faster - and think it undesirable - you can do something about it. 

Pierre Lafontaine, the head man at Swim Canada, will doubtless wish to celebrate his swimmer and her swim. Rightly so, entirely understandable. However, he is also a member of a group of coaches who have stated that they fundamentally disagree with what is being worn by swimmers on the way to all those records at the helm of a tidal wave of big improvements down through the depths of the world rankings since Februray 2008. That position is forced upon the likes of Lafontaine by events. It should never have been. It is an untenable position - unfair to coach, unfair to swimmer. 

There are arguments for and against asterisks against world-record times set since February 2008 and will comment further on that in the weeks ahead. One thing I am sure of: post-February 2008 performances in neck to ankle suits of a certain kind cannot be compared to what went before.

Pierse can in some sense be considered a victim of circumstance. Not just because her efforts have to be couched with suit talk but because the suit she wore did not quite fit right. It was, by all accounts, better than then one she tried in Beijing and swapped for a Blueseventy at the Games because Speedo couldn't find a small enough suit that would fit her. "Available to all"...etc. 

Jozsef Nagy, the Hungarian breaststroke guru, arrived in autumn 2006 and began to turn Pierse around. Her stroke counts were nine for the first length then 10, 11 in the middle, and 12 on the last length, according to SwimNews reports from the Canadian nationals. More even splits would have been better, Nagy said. He and Pierse will work on it, and a negative split is among aims they will dabble with. Nagy did not only celebrate Pierse today - he also coached the first four women home in that race. 

The Dubai Charter, meanwhile, will leave things in place for Rome 2009 that will be unpalatable for all who believe that 2008 was a mistake. FINA's actions in Dubai represent an acknowledgment that a mistake was indeed made. FINA could have stuck to its earlier line of "Crisis, what crisis?" It didn't. It looked critics in the eye and said "you have a point and we want to return integrity to the sport". For that, we should be grateful. Some of the language chosen by FINA from Dubai continues to raise concern about intent. Whether the Dubai Charter will deliver meaningful change is yet to be seen. For now, ss swimmers continue to transform the global standards of the sport, change cannot come soon enough.