Fred Bousquet in one suit Vs Michael Phelps in another and sporting a new sprint technique over 50m freestyle is today being billed as a showdown at the Charlotte UltraSwim meet. 

The description stretches a point somewhat: not only is Phelps's best ever 50m a 22.94 - exactly 2sec slower (just the one length) than Bousquet's Jaked best, a world record that belongs to an era that will soon be over - but the American is unlikely to show up to his blocks in a shiny rubber-loke suit anyhow and will find his Speedo LZR a little out of date when it comes to enhancing performance. 

Phelps will race the 50, 100 and 200m freestyle and 100m on back and 'fly at the Charlotte meet, his first official race outing since he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Back then, Phelps raced in the winning 4x100m free team that pipped a French team that included Bousquet. 

In April at French trials for the world championships, in Rome in July, Bousquet clocked 20.94sec over 50m freestyle, a time that hammered a gaping whole in every argument that says nothing unusual has happened in the pool of late. Bousquet hacked 0.34sec off the one-lap global standard, a small sea in sprinting terms, and was more than 1sec faster than he had ever sum before February 2008, when the Speedo LZR introduced non-permeable materials into suit design.

Those who love their swimming complete with artificial props argue that this is the era in which sprinters are trained as sprinters and do much better, smarter work than bygone generations (bygone as in last two years). The examples that take an axe to those arguments are everywhere, not least of all the vast difference in the preparations of Bousquet and Olympic 100m champion Alain Bernard, who in am arena X-Glide, a suit designed as a competitive response to the fast-suit trend that arena warned against and hopes will be brought top an end, clocked a 46.94 100m freestyle world record to become the first man (and fast suit) to race inside 47sec.

I have even read that the current generation of swimmers are bigger, more honed, more fit for purpose than those who went before them. They clearly had never stood next to the likes of Matt Biondi or Alex Popov in their prime.

Monday in Lausanne brings the FINA suits commission and the results of independent suit tests around a table to finalise the list of approved devices (maybe they will be suits) for use this summer before a more stringent regime comes into force from January 1, 2010, one which is highly likely to kill off several of the models see for the first time in the pool in the past year.

More interesting than the 50m free at the Charlotte meet will be Phelps Vs Olympic champion Aaron Peirsol (will he be the first in American waters to wear the X-Glide that is yet to be approved?) in the 100m backstroke, though we'll have to wait to see that clash at US trials.

"Mike will do well, no doubt about it," Peirsol told AP. "He's already been very, very fast and he hasn't even scratched the surface of his potential in that event." So too will Japan's Ryosuke Irie, who fell 0.02sec shy of Peirsol's world record of 52.54 in Australia last week and hacked 1.08sec off Ryan Lochte's global mark in the 200m.

"I welcome the competition," Peirsol said. "For a long time, it's been kind of stagnant in that event. I need it. It's going to help me. It would be much more fulfilling to win against those guys than to win by a couple of seconds."

Peirsol will race 100m and 200m back, his first competitive tests since the Beijing Olympic Games.

The first day of action at the Charlotte round, fifth leg, of the USA Swimming Grand Prix series saw Peter Vanderkaay (Rochester, Mich.) and Katie Hoff (Towson, Md.) win the distance events. Vanderkaay set a pool record of 15:09.77 and won himself a $100 prize (which puts into context the nonsense that swimmers around the world are making leaps and strides on the clock because of the tidal wave of financial rewards now available in the sport). Josef Kinderwater (Lancaster, Pa.) followed through on 15:31.48 with North Baltimore’s Brennan Morris (Baltimore, Md.) third in 15:38.88.

Hoff clocked 8:39.35 and said: "I felt a little sluggish in the beginning. I’ve been working on my stroke a lot, and I think I just forgot to kick in the first 400 metres." Club Wolverine’s Emily Brunemann (Crescent Springs, Ky.) took second in 8:41.23, with third going to 16-year-old Canadian Lindsay Seemann, on 8:44.05.

Live video of the event can be seen at Swimnetwork.com, the official "news" site of USA Swimming.