Paul Biedermann, world 200m and 400m freestyle champion, today attacks FINA for orchestrating a form of governance that "borders on modern slavery" in terms of obliging swimmers to advertise products with which hey have no connection.

In an interview with DPA, the German news agency, on the eve of German nationals and world-title qualifiers in Berlin, Biedermann says that he will have a good crack at retaining the 200m and 400m freestyle world titles in Shanghai this July and takes the chance to call on FINA to be less "primeval".

He reserves his strongest criticism of FINA for a failure to step up on blood testing and introduce longitudinal blood passports and the restrictions, impositions and obligations placed on swimmers that affect their ability to attract sponsorship. 

Biedermann (describing an overwhelming FINA Congress vote in favour of a return to textile-only suits cut at shoulder straps and knees for women and waist to knees for men as akin to putting swimmers "back in a potato sack so that we become slower, so that the FINA must pay no more so much money for records) says: "We are sometimes very primeval … including in arrangements made for advertisement. We are obliged to have some foreign sponsors on our kit with which we have no connection. That … borders on modern slavery."

FINA sponsors can buy the rights to have their name on the bibs and caps of all swimmers at a world championships under current rules and while that helps to finance the governing body, covers costs of support, development and prize money for athletes and FINA members, it also has the potential to clash with personal sponsorship deals and to infringe on the rights of individuals, critics of the system argue.

Suits are the lesser of his bug-bears. The world 200m and 400m freestyle record holder makes the all-time top 3 over 200m freestyle in textile bodysuit but not yet the all-time top 20 in textile over 400m, while his best times set in non-textile bodysuits that are now banned are 2.71sec (200m) and 6.23sec (400m) faster than his best times swum in a textile suit. Importantly, he remains among the best in the world at middle-distance freestyle and will be a challenger for the world crowns once more this summer in Shanghai on his way to the 2012 Olympic Games in Berlin. 

Biedermann, among victims of non-textile suits in 2008 under the terms of federation contractual arrangements that made Germany uncompetitive, stays faithful to the line he has always taken: he never wanted non-textile suits and does not believe they have a part to play in the sport. However, he does express a wish to have the bodysuit cut back.

Returning to the theme of his own performances, he regards narrow defeat at the hand of Yannick Agnel over 400m free at the European Championships last year and defeat at a meet in Wuppertal at the hand of Markus Deibler as having provided valuable lessons.

"You have to take seriously a lesson like that in Wuppertal," says Biedermann, who mis-paced his race. "But I'd rather that happen at German nationals than at a world championships."

On the comeback of the year, that of Ian Thorpe (AUS), Olympic 200m and 400m champion in 2004, Biedermann noted: "He enriches the sport of swimming tremendously. I'd be delighted if he chooses to race the 200m again. I never had the chance to race him before." Worth noting in the context of Biedermann's words: Thorpe raced to his fastest times in a textile bodysuit, having set his first world record in traditional briefs. 

The move to cut back from the bodysuit cut was taken partly on advice about textile products already used in the realm of medical treatments and products that area heading into that realm as the technology improves that have the potential to serve as performance-enhancing garments in sport depending on the extent to which material covers the skin.

The chaos, unfairness and unsustainability of the 2008 and 2009 seasons in the race pool were factors that influenced the Congress vote on suit rules in July 2009.