Rome 2009: The Rome 2009 world championships ran at a 9.5 million euro loss, official reports from Italy reveal today. The specific cost to the Italian swimming federation (FIN) and the city of Rome is put at euros 3.6m. The state will pick up the rest of the bill, media reports suggest. And that with all those shiny suits that were said to be propping up the sport of swimming. In fact, all they were propping up was performance, and costing suit makers, swimmers, parents and programmes far too much money and angst.

South Africa:  The Pretoria News catches up with Roland Schoeman after his fine efforts at the Durban round of the World Cup. The Blade says that his tour plan is to gradually build up to the Singapore round, where he intends to fire on full tanks. Schoeman takes a pragmatic view on Durban's loss of the world cup from next year onwards on grounds of cost. He tells the paper that Swim SA's budget does not stretch to a world cup, so be it. The meet is set to be held in Dubai instead as the kind of costs we read of in the item above this one dictate that nations with no swimming culture at all bid to hosts world swimming events in spectacular facilities, mainly because they can afford to do so and wish to attract visitors. Dubai will host the world s/c championships in December next year and the 2013 world long-course championships. Schoeman's last word on the shiny suits: he can't wait for the "purists" to come to the fore again, saying:  "I will not miss having to spend 40 minutes to get into a racing suit that can tear anymore. The technology ended up taking the essence of swimming away and made it impossible to compete for those that could not afford it." 

Speedy Siblings: watch for Fernanda Cielo and Devon Lochte in the years to come. Both have made their first strokes to bigger exposure in international waters by securing places in US college programmes. There's a splendid piece at espn on Devon, a 19-year-old who aims to race on the same Olympic relay as his bro - Ryan. Now that would be great to see.

USA: Paul Newberry at AP spoke to Dara Torres about her appointment with the surgeon's knife and how the fittest fortysomething on the planet aims to cope with a sedentary life in rehabilitation over the coming year. You can read his fine piece here. 

USA: USA Swimming has made its latest moves to leave no stone unturned. Read about their Diversity programme.

Suits: November will mark the launch of a variety of suit models that have so far made it on to the Jan 1, 2010 approved suits list. Among them is a model called the Speedo LZR Racer and a little fuss has been made about the name. TYR are also sticking to the name attached to one of its shiny suits. There is nothing wrong in keeping such names, given that we all know that the suits are void of non-textile performance-enhancement and will be cut according to the new rules of the sport. Of greater concern will be any claims for "the fastest suit", the "the suit that reduces fatigue" and that kind of stuff: for all such things are now banned under Rule SW10.7.