Comment: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." So said Winston Churchill, a leader with lessons from which we can all learn. In the internet age of instant views, generation X with the attention span of a gnat (if that's you, look away now), official news, fans posing as reporters and few media platforms able or willing to tackle issues head on, Sir Winston's conclusion rings with growing resonance. In swimming, the suits crisis is out of control and every new turn made seems destined to spin the sport into further trouble.

At the weekend, statements from Italy and Japan indicated that FINA had eased its position within a week of publication of its approved suits list for 2009 (make that one week in 2009 perhaps). Has it eased, is it capitulating? "That is not the case," said a FINA source. "It is the wrong thing to do. It is up to federations to behave as they wish at their national championships but FINA rules are clear. Federations are warned that if world records are set they will be subject to FINA rules of ratification." Those included submitting the approval code of the suit worn on the way to breaking the world record. Another source said: "Federations can do what they like at national championships."

Well, actually, no, they can't. If they could, then Alessia Filippi could race 400m on freestyle, call it a medley and claim the helm of the world rankings and top seed for Rome 2009 with a time some 20sec or more inside world-record pace. Ridiculous notion? Of course it is. Just as ridiculous as racing to a world record in a suit that is not approved for use, or donning flippers, or tumble turning on 'fly or turning over onto freestyle 10m out from the wall in a backstroke race, and so on and so forth. No, federations may not do what they like, regardless of where that message came from. Federations should conform to FINA rules. And FINA should enforce the rules. That is the point of having an international federation. Without rules (the best form being simple, clear and as few in number as you can muster), without standardisation, without the environment that delivers fair play and a level playing field, there is no point in FINA existing.

That fair play and level playing field will not be restored until non-textile, non-permeable fabrics are sunk without trace. Blueseventy's position is fascinating: it centres on "when in use" and air-trapping properties of suits. Which is why, back in February 2009, a whole host of experts from around the world offered their services - and their names were offered to Prof Manson - so that tests that simulate real race swimming might be conducted. To my knowledge, some very key names who could have helped FINA were never contacted. That was a mistake. Confidence in FINA will surely ebb away like a rip tide during a full moon if the "independent" testing process is deemed to have been a farce, with not a single serious booster suit taken out of the water, and many left in it.

In terms of testing in "real" swimming conditions, we are, of course, not only talking of knowledge from a lab. The blueseventy argument takes us full circle back to that the scientific proof that 2008-09 suits enhance performance in a truly significant way (a way incomparable to what went before on suits, incomparable to caps and blocks, the weather, diet, and on and on): the result sheet of world swimming, the transfigured world rankings, the off-the-chart efforts, the massive personal bests, the records and the breaks in career patterns that show us that swimmer A went from F to K capacity over an eight-year period but spent the past year leaping to T and then surging to X. All of that was proved "in use", with "fabric" stretched (and how) on bodies. All of that proved beyond doubt that suits enhance performance and that they benefit some more than others, benefit swimmers differently over different distances and on different strokes. Proved beyond a doubt that the world of swimming had  never been as chaotic since the days when pontoons at sea were as best a guess as you could make when judging whether swimmer A and swimmer B raced 100m, 101m, 102m, 97m, and so forth.

The trouble with Prof Manson's brief is becoming clear: the testing parameters were set by FINA for the independent testing team with a mind to appease suit makers who might suffer commercially from a sudden jolt in their markets. Bad decision, thought many then. In hindsight, FINA must surely now think the same. For in return for its respect, FINA has been repaid with an escalation in suit wars.

The FINA executive will meet in Lausanne this Friday to decide whether it got it right with the approved suits list last week and what it ought to do from January 1, 2010. As it sits in session, the executive might be wise to ask itself two questions: Is our authority over world swimming ebbing away? And if so, why?

• Is it because FINA took a wrong turn and should have opted for allowing performance enhancement? No. That argument is done. Those who believe that suits should surf swimmers up the pool have lost. It is now patently clear to the mass of the sport that the cancer of performance-enhancement in suits can only lead to further chaos, division and imbalance. 
• Is it because FINA chose to banish non-permeable, non-textile fabrics? No. Because they haven't done so. What made the Speedo LZR a seismic shifter of events in world swimming history has not been weeded out in the first round of independent tests. Let us recall that the whole crisis began and in 2008 was driven by one suit: the LZR. 
• So we come to the real problem: FINA has, in true biblical fashion, been lukewarm (if only to be kind to suit makers who should never have been allowed to have such a decisive impact on the nature of the sport of swimming). The old sport sleeps yet, the impostor breaths and races. FINA, so far, has said 'no' to X but allowed 'Y' on the cusp of a world championship, when both X and Y, regardless of their place along the spectrum of trouble, rest at the heart of the crisis that FINA needed to and wants to address. Namely: the sport is better off for not having 100% or almost 100% non-permeable suits in the race pool and should return to textile suits and a policy of "no performance-enhancing apparel allowed", a policy that could now be backed by "science" and knowledge gained from the woe of the past 18 months. 

The reason why France, Japan and Italy are now plotting a revolt, why the winds of protest are blowing towards Lausanne and Rome is clear: they, and many others, are not Speedo nations and they do not see why the LZR should remain when the tricks they signed up to have been ejected from the magician's hat. FINA, of course, is not alone in the clubhouse of those who could have taken a stand against fast suits but did not and now regret the chaos that has come to pass. 

Ultimately, however, only one party has the power to set things right: FINA. The international federation talks of restoring integrity. It wanted to lean on the good will of swimmers, coaches and suit makers. It failed to fully understand that good management, good governance, direction and the drive to deliver fair play and balance comes from the top downwards. When you do not wish swimmers to take steroids, you may ask of them 'please do not take steroids' but that will not be enough, human nature being as it is. What you need to do is set rules and draw lines. Hard and fast and unmistakably obvious lines. An example well set is one that filters through the ranks of swimming and allows fair play and friendship in sport to flourish and a culture of healthy competition to thrive.

Suit makers

FINA's relationship with suit makers resembles Dr Doolittle's Push-me-Pull-me and could only ever have been that on the issue of restoring integrity to the sport. Back in February in Lausanne, some suit makers attended a meeting with FINA not in a spirit of working towards a world in which the LZR was no more. Rather, they sat in the room seething and sour and determined - especially if the LZR was to remain - to make something that would knock the LZR into a cocked hat and press ahead with apparel that diminishes the work of swimmer and coach by tuning judgement of performance into the art of looking through a glass darkly. And as it turned out, they were right to have been suspicious, right to think that efforts would be made to keep the LZR in the water.

Federations

Many arguments apply to many nations but some examples stand out. Japan allowed a whole national team to race at national championships and then at a duel with Australia in a suit that had never been approved when it knew that change was surely coming. Japan has a representative on the FINA Bureau. If he has seen half of what I have seen in writing, that Bureau member will surely have been able to advise his nation and his nation's frustrated suit makers that now was no time to leap ahead in the race to find apparel that boosts performance beyond the natural capacity of swimmers. The same argument applies to France, while Italy's stance is similar in tone.

On the other side of the divide, Speedo-backed nations have hidden behind the excuse of "we just do what FINA tells us to". No, you don't. As the USA and Australia have demonstrated, fast suits hurt age-group swimming, so they have been barred. Decisive action. Canada barred the use of the LZR at its trials "in the interests of fair play". Same for Italy at a time when fast suits were said to be "technological doping" (and how bizarre that all looks now just one year on). It is time for federations to show judgement, leadership and courage. And honesty. Take Denis Pursley, former US head coach and now at the helm in Britain. He had this to say:

"There is a strong consensus that at the very minimum there needs to be regulation and there needs to be monitoring and a strict approval process. And whatever is approved needs to be available to all the teams and all the athletes at least a minimum of 12 months in advance of the competition. Seeing so many world records fall in one year demeans their value. It's like cheating to some extent  ... I'm very concerned that we could soon see individual suits being tailored for specific individuals. That would take the whole sport in a very different direction." If suit design before this year had "helped to maximise performance", the suits of 2008 had "enhanced performance". Pursley added: "A line has been crossed." He would like to see the sport return to the right side of that line.

The British federation responded with an official statement that went like this: Pursley had used "emotional language", blah, blah, blah. No backing for the fundamental honesty in the message that the American had to deliver. No real wish to tell it like it is. No real wish to take responsibility. Would that have been the case had Germany, for example, put all its swimmers in a 100% non-permeable, non-textile adidas in time for Beijing? Would Australia, Britain, the USA and others have said nothing under those circumstances?

A sport demeaned, said Pursley. Is it? Absolutely. FINA knows it well and has set off in search of answers. It should have done so sooner. It should have demanded of suit makers that they get there sooner. It should have been asked by its federations to head there much sooner. Diplomacy has its moment but if it fails, best for those in office to state clearly where the threat lies and then best to drive a stake through its heart as soon as you can. Britain's position in 2008 was every bit as woeful as Italy's in 2009. Why? Because both positions rest on one overriding thought: does our team have the best set of advantages available (in a world where performance-enhancement is allowed)? If you apply that to facilities, to diet, to sports science on the right side of legal, to training methods, all good and well. If you apply it to doping, no go. Make no mistake; the 2008-09 suits are a step down the road to a doping suit. Fact, not fiction.

While FINA allows the notion of advantage through a suit to be relevant, nations will remain at loggerheads, simplistically put:

• 1. USA, AUS and GBR, among a few others: Speedo nations are looking forward to Rome all the more because the fear of the Jaked01 and the arena X-Glide and the Descente "rubber" etc etc is gone. Speedo nations get to wear the suit that gave them an average of 2% performance gain in 2008 and was responsible for the bulk of the 108 world records and the bulk of every medal won at the Water Cube in Beijing.
• 2. FRA, ITA and others who do not have access to the Speedo and do not want to use it because they are not supported and are not signed up for business, want to see a whole range of performance-enhancing suits poured back in to the race pool because the LZR, at the helm of other brands making booster suits for this summer, remains.

Those two positions may shift yet again this week if Prof Manson declares that, after all, the blueseventy, the arena X-Glide, the Jaked01 are all just as acceptable as the LZR when stretched "in use" on a human body. That would strike a lethal blow to FINA's authority on the eve of the world championships and the Rome 2009 Congress. Instead of FINA telling the swimming world "here is the right direction and here comes good governance to keep the sport on track", it would have capitulated to the chaos of a world in which Japan, Italy, France and others currently have "records" sitting at the helm of transfigured world ranking lists that owed a great deal to a suit. FINA would have said X one day and then, under a little pressure and having erred in its decision to allow the market to decide the parameters of suit testing, said Y the next (and not the first time).

The positions of Japan, Italy and others are untenable. That is what FINA ought to be saying. The position of the LZR nations is also untenable. And that is what the mainstream media in those countries appears still to have difficulty in admitting. Hard, almost impossible in fact, to find a single Australian cutting from 2008 that is critical of suits that enhance performance. If you want to find continuous and widespread coverage of swimming in a national media, you will find no nation to compete with Australia. Its media has proved itself to be ferocious when it comes to doping, when it comes to any notion of "cheating", such as the last underwater pull of Otylia Jedrzejczak in that 200m 'fly world title final in 2005, and on and on. But on the subject of a suit that clearly helped to catapult Australians to world records? Hardly a word - until this year, until the advent of suits that had got past the LZR on performance-enhancement, on durability and price. 

Now, quite rightly, we hear a fair deal from Down Under, the US and from elsewhere. Good that people have caught up. Bad that anyone should think that 2% performance enhancement is ok but 3% or 2.5% or 4% etc etc is not okay. There are those who point to suits from 1999 to 2007 as having enhanced performance. Nothing, but nothing, remotely compares to what the Speedo LZR did in 2008, and then to what the 2008-09 catch-up and plunder suits have done in the past six months or so.

Commercially, the LZR was dead. It has been temporarily revived by the barring of the blueseventys and Jaked01s of a bygone world that breathed for a moment. Now, the LZR may be deemed dead once more if blueseventy (far more durable than the Speedo suit, say swimmers), the Jaked01 and the X-Glide (perhaps others too) slide back into the race pool. 

And all of that, one way or another, leaves the sport of swimming wounded and bleeding. It leaves swimmers and coaches confused and parents facing big bills and wondering whether they might be better taking their offspring down the road to a different sport. At the elite racing edge of the sport, if nations are happy to replicate the environment created by the GDR and the doping era, when records were set that would stand for many years and survive among the all-time top 10 and 20 lists for many years still beyond a time when one or two individuals got past previous perversion on the ahead-of-time clock, more fool them. It will be left to future generations to catch-up on the clock in their time. But why, as we have asked before, ruin Rome? 

For legal reasons, FINA is unlikely to impose a bylaw for Rome that would allow comparison with Melbourne 2007 and Shanghai 2011, that would allow the world championships to unfold in a spirit of fairness and in the absence of daily controversy as a string of swimmers and coaches and managers try to explain their thoughts and feelings to a media that will not go quiet on the suits issue until the suits themselves have gone quiet in a permanent way.

What a mess the sport is in, one that unfolded under the leadership of FINA president Mustapha Larfaoui. There are so many questions that must surely be going through Mr Larfaoui's mind. Such as:

• How can FINA's new rules be checked at standard swim meets around the world?
• How will FINA cope with a world-record claim that states swimmer X wore model Y when a letter lands on the desk saying "not true, he wore suit T, and that's been banned"? 
• How will FINA cope with the latest tricks of cheats to have reached the rumour mill (just before a pool near you) - the use of a spray that renders a permeable suit non-permeable but is invisible? Is it working on detection?

If a single lesson has been learned from the fast suits crisis it is that compromise and half-measures are no way to go, and simplicity is the key to a brighter future. The right direction is the one FINA had committed itself to for almost 100 years until February 2008: that nothing shall aid speed, buoyancy and endurance. It is absolute humbug to say that when those words were written, no one thought of suits as being part of that equation. The fact is that when those words were written, those who wrote them had no inkling that a suit would one day be a device in much the same way as a pair of flippers or a fin might alter the natural angle of buoyancy of a swimmer and contribute in a truly significant way to enhancing performance. The suit of today is a device that aids speed, buoyancy and endurance. It ought not to be so. 

The FINA executive will meet in Lausanne on Friday this week and faces two critical decisions:

• 1. For Rome. Will the approved list now be allowed to be bloated by performance-enhancing suits that were rejected a week ago? Will FINA allow performance-enhancement for the world championships in Rome at the expense of damaging its key asset (it must know that it already faces a media bun fight)? Will FINA call on suit makers to comply with the principal of "no performance-enhancement from non-textile apparel"? Will it be able to convince suit makers that in their interests and in the interests of the sport, Rome 2009 should be organised on the basis of Melbourne 2007 when it comes to suits?

Sticking with performance enhancement in Rome (of any kind) leads us to the second watershed issue:

• 2. Suit makers have shot themselves in the foot. If there is one good thing to have come out of all of this latest round of wrangling and wriggling from suit makers is it this: decision-makers in FINA are, according to several sources close to the heart of the matter, "sick and tired" of the whole issue and are far more minded now to vote for an absolute bar on all non-textile, non-permeable materials and for a return to the use of permeable textiles of the kind used up to and including the world championships in Melbourne in March 2007. "One thing has become clear," said a senior source. "There is no sensible compromise that can be reached that would not be abused by suit makers, and swimming and swimmers would live with what we have lived through for the past year forever more. That cannot be. We have to go back and go back as soon as possible. We have taken a wrong road and the only way to go forward is to go back ."

The time has come for FINA to take a stand. Before it meets on May 29, it might care to garner courage from the following helpful phrases:

• "It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." 
• "If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack." 
• 
"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!" 
• "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law." 
• "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened." 
• "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
• "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

All are the sayings of Winston Churchill. 

Swimming is crying out for help. Are you, the FINA executive, up to the challenges of leadership?

In 2008, the suit wars (no, I'm not using Churchill quotes to liken WWII to swimming, for those feeling hot under the collar, the point is leadership lessons in times of stress) represented a crisis of FINA's own making. In 2009, the chaos has deepened and tough response has been tardy. Does FINA, bruised and battered, have the will, clear vision and resolve to take the clear, un-muddied decision it ought to have taken some while back? Will the international federation justify its being?