Arena, the Italian suit maker that warned FINA early last year that allowing the Speedo LZR into the race pool would precipitate suit wars and cause mayhem in the sport, has revealed that the X-Glide that will be used at the world championships in Rome next month is a modified version of the apparel used by swimmers on the way to world records several weeks ago.

Arena notes that all tests show that what the X-Glide of spring can help the swimmer to achieve, so can the final X-Glide.

Arena today complains that other suits, such as the Jaked01, that use the same "technology" and construction, were not asked to modify their suits before reintroduction to the race pool. Arena has now demanded clarification from FINA in a statement that reads: "the decisions released yesterday do not seem to truly aid the cause of full clarity in relation to the racing swimsuit controversy".

The "Arena Company Position about Racing Swimwear Approval" in full:

Tolentino, June 22, 2009 

With regard to the decisions taken by the FINA Executive on June 19, 2009 and made public yesterday concerning the racing swimsuits subject to re-examination under the transitory FINA regulations in force (the “Dubai Charter”), Arena is pleased to learn that the latest version of Powerskin X-Glide has been approved. 

As a consequence, Arena Powerskin X-Glide racing suits will be made available on time for the forthcoming Swimming World Championships in Rome. 

In spite of the very short time in which Arena was asked to react - only 30 days after the first response received from FINA last May 18 - all the tests that were run, involving some of the best swimmers in the Arena Elite Team (e.g. Alain Bernard and Milorad Cavic), clearly demonstrate that the final version of Powerskin X-Glide totally maintains its level of performance, whilst being fully compliant with the FINA guidelines issued one month ago. 

Although Arena is fully committed to open and loyal cooperation with FINA, which is at present having to deal with the tough task of making sure that the world of swimming puts the recent turmoil well behind it, we must underline that the decisions released yesterday do not seem to truly aid the cause of full clarity in relation to the racing swimsuit controversy. 

On June 18, besides modified prototypes, Arena presented to FINA Swimwear Commission a set of incontrovertible, scientific results (following a quantitative experiment run in cooperation with the University of Bologna - Italy) proving that the original, non modified Powerskin X-Glide suit is not trapping any air at all. 

This is why Arena is particularly surprised to discover that its request to reconsider the approval of the original version of Powerskin X-Glide was not accepted, whereas - apparently - the same requests were considered differently by FINA when related to other racing suits based on similar technologies. 

We also have to remark that requests for modifications made by FINA on May 18 automatically turned into a one full month of “freezing” of Arena Powerskin X-Glide manufacturing activities. This becomes clearly harder to accept after discovering that not all the concerned brands actually had to undergo the same modification phase, and will finally be allowed to keep producing unmodified suits which had formerly been deemed as inadmissible. 

Based on such considerations, and with the sole objective of ensuring that all brands are allowed to operate on an equal footing, Arena confirms that it wishes to ask FINA to provide clarifications on these points within the shortest possible time. 

End of statement 

With every move it makes, FINA appears to compound its own problems. The lesson for 2010 is clear: no more transitory moves to appease anyone. Make your mind up, get the science and expertise in place, form a panel of experts who understand fabrics and suit construction and the application of those to competitive swimming (like federations do with doping) and then set your lines and ask suit makers to stick to those. It should not be for suit makers to tell swimming where the line should be drawn. That much is obvious from the farcical, sad and damaging position that FINA now finds itself in.