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Top 100 Memories: 2000-09 (Part IX[-Glide])
Feb 10, 2010 - Craig Lord
Memories are not always fond and in 2008 and 2009, suits overshadowed swimmers and swimming and coaches and all other things. Part IX in our Top 100 memories of the past decade - Jan 1, 2000 to end '09, reflects that fact. We're counting backwards from 100 downwards in chronological order from the beginning of the Millennium. The top 10 will disregard the chronological order of things and dedicate itself to events that went beyond the thrill of a singular moment or event.
Today: 11-20, the years 2008-09
20. February 16, 2008. The legend, the lioness and the aquatic wardrobe. This is the day that may go down as the official launch of Suit Wars, as Kirsty Coventry (ZIM), on the first day of finals at the Missouri Grand Prix, donned a Speedo LZR Racer and cracked Hungarian Krisztina Egerszegi's 1991 world record over 200m backstroke. The time on the clock 2:06.39, compared to the Hungarian's 2:06.62. Minutes later in Missouri, Katie Hoff (USA) went after Laure Manadou's (FRA) 400 free record, also in the new suit. She just missed it 4:02.20 to Manadou's 4:02.12, but broke the oldest American record on the books, Janet Evans' (USA) 1988 record. Hoff also won the 100 free in a best time of 54.28. Early February of Olympic year, with a big season ahead. Coventry would get the mark down to 2:05.24 to defend the Olympic crown in Beijing, four years after winning the Athens title in 2:09.19. You have to go back to Ulrike Richter for the GDR in 1976 to find a Games that marked such a vast improvement in the winner's time in a four-year Olympic cycle, and we all know what State Plan 14:25 was about. Let's be clear: there is no suggestion whatsoever, and never has been, that Coventry, winner of three medals at the 2004 Olympic Games and a world champion by 2005, was an excellent, even extraordinary, athlete purely because of the suit she was wearing. Equally, however, there can be no question that the time on the clock reflected the 50% polyurethane glide and compression factors inherent in the new Speedo apparel, as the maker claimed on the tin - and the question would soon become: are these world records being broken because we are seeing the fastest swimmer ever or because this generation of swimmers has access to a piece of equipment that directly - by virtue of "living" on the skin - enhances their performance well beyond anything we have seen before and gives them access to speed that previous generations, such as the generation of 2004-2007, never had? A subsidiary question was this: is the nature of this performance enhancement fair to all or does it differ to other moments of change down the years in a sport that until 2008 had been technique-based (goggles included, though their introduction as a standard accessible to all leading swimmers at almost the very same moment, ranks as the closest example of a benefit accrued through apparel) Those who saw only stars, lights, cameras, glitter and glitz (and none of the considerable downside to the shiny suits) cheered when they saw the time(s) and then shrugged and said "shut up" when they heard the questions. After all, said some, Egerszegi had got past a 2:08.60 world record (Betsy Mitchell, USA) to that 2:06.62. It was only natural that great athletes would make such leaps from time to time. Indeed. The trouble was not Coventry nor Egerszegi but the undeniable difference in the two cases, one that was there for all to see as the shiny suits era unfolded. The evidence that something out of the ordinary and specific to a suit (one kind or another as it would turn out) was to be seen not so much in some of the early world records of the shiny suits era (though some of those, of course, ranked as truly extraordinary) but the tidal wave of progress that followed in their wake. Take the cases of Egerszegi and Coventry.
Egerszegi best season-by-season:
Coventry best season-by-season:
Draw whatever conclusion you like about those efforts worthy of celebration and about the pattern in general. Far, far more relevant in 2008 was what was going on behind the woman at the helm: whereas it took a 2:12.84 to make the top 20 in the world in 2004, compared to a 2:14.18 in 1996 and a 2:14.38 in 1992, by summer 2008 it took a 2:09.86. And that kind of factor played out no matter how deep you looked down the world rankings, no matter where swimmers came from, no matter what programmes and coaching they had access to. The leap was across the board - but not uniform within the mix. While some such as Coventry, coached by Kim Brackin in the US, (and Natalie Coughlin over 100m) continued to show the kind of angle of buoyancy that had long helped them to stand out, there were those who now shot up the rankings in leaps and bounds after a lengthy career of having shown no natural capacity to travel at the speed that the clock said that they (and their suit) now could. While Coventry improved about 1.5sec from textile body to non-textile body on her way to defending her Olympic crown in Beijing, eight of the top 20 by summer 2008 had improved by an average of more than 6secs on a 200m season-to-season. By January 1, 2008, four women in history had cracked 2:08. By summer 2008, eight had done so in one season.
19. March 19. Dutch date with destiny for Dale Oen. At a European Championships in Eindhoven that witnessed a world record set by a swimmer wearing two suits at a time when the rule book made provision to ban such things only if you judged a double garment to be a "device" (which many had imagined was the case), Alex Dale Oen, of Norway, delivered history of a different kind. In 59.67, for a European record, Dale Oen, wearing textile pants, and Hugues Duboscq (FRA), on 59.78, became the 4th and fifth men ever to break the minute over 100m breaststroke. That made Dale Oen the first Norwegian man to win a European title (Irene Dalby in 1991 was the last woman), two years after he had fallen the same tiny margin - 0.02sec - shy of becoming a national pioneer: in Budapest 2006, he finished second to 59sec pioneer Roman Sludnov (RUS), 1:00.61 to 1:00.63. Both Dale Oen and Duboscq raced inside the previous European standard, which had stood to Sludnov at 59.94 since 2001. Kosuke Kitajima (JPN) and Brendan Hansen (USA) followed the Russian below the minute. Then, in Eindhoven, there were five. Dale Oen, coached by Stig Leganger Hansen in Bergen, had got there the hard way, via a parallel world of working in a shipyard, his official biography noted at the time. Dale Oen's time was third-best ever, behind 59.13 for Hansen and 59.53 for Kitajima. The Norwegian said: "I felt awesome looking up at the scoreboard and recognising a time below a minute and a European record! It's a fantastic feeling being the fourth swimmer crashing the minute barrier. I wanted to achieve that feat already last year at the Worlds in Melbourne. A very fast pool here in Eindhoven." In the same session, Milorad Cavic (SRB), in a textile body, clocked a European record of 23.11sec to win the 50m 'fly ahead of Sergiy Breus (UKR) in 23.48, and Rafael Munoz (ESP) in 23.60. A year on and Munoz in a shiny red 100% poly suit would clock a 22.43 world record. Laure Manaudou (FRA) clocked 2:07.99 over 200m back in a textile body; and in the semis of the 200m freestyle Paul Biedermann (GER) set a best time of 1:47.57 in a textile suit, on his way to getting past the 1:47.44 German record of former world -record holder and Olympic champion Michael Gross, from 1984. Some 16 months on and Biedermann would jet past his own generation of greats to clock 1:42.00 in a 100% poly suit and lift the world crown in Rome. By then, Dale Oen, among those who opposed the use of shiny suits, had faded from the breaststroke picture. His point was no more clearly made than a glance at the all-time rankings over 100m breaststroke: by the end of 2008, eight men had cracked a minute and by the end of 2009 the number was ... 27, with Dale Oen no longer among the top 10 on a top 30 that included 11 sub-minute men who in 2008 had yet to crack 1:01. In summer 2009, Dale Oen told SwimNews: "Every day I just wait on the message from Fina to say ‘we will return to 2007’. For me I am just happy to be a member of the sub-minute group with the old normal suit. I know that we were only four people in a normal suit. Now with new-tech suits, we’re 12 and like more than 25 performances [54 in fact, by June 2009]. I hate how the suits have made a mockery out of swimming and I just hope that [FINA] will clean it up. I would be so happy to go back - even to briefs. I don’t care what we race in, as long as it is the man or woman that does the job and not the suit. You see people do times that you know they have not done the work to do. It makes me sick to my stomach. It’s not right. What those who have worked really, really hard to do, others seem to do by just putting a suit on. We see people who have done not nearly as much work do those times that took us years to achieve. I was really happy about what arena said earlier in Manchester 2008, like 'ok, if you accept this LZR that will be the start of a new era, careful’, but FINA did not listen and now look where we are. I just hope that Beijing was not the last Olympics to be close to fair...for us it seems that Athens 2004 was the last Olympics that was truly down to the person not the suit."
18. April 8. Storm warning. By the time I wrote this on the eve of racing at a Manchester 2008 world s/c championships that boasted Stephen Rubin, head of Speedo's parent, as the chairman of the organising committee, 19 long-course world records and two world s/c records had fallen in 2008. That figure was more in keeping with annual totals throughout the history of swimming. There had never been an early season like it. Never a period of six weeks in which 19 l/c world records had fallen away from the big global competitive gathering of any particular year. It was just the warm-up: by the end of Olympic year 55 world long-course and 53 world s/c records had fallen for an all-time annual record of 108 global marks (and that in itself was just the warm-up for a 2009 sunk in suit wars that threatened to alter the course of swimming history for a moment before common sense prevailed and a big mistake was corrected). Here are some comparative annual world l/c record counts from the past: 2004 - 17; 2000 - 33 (1st Olympic year for bodysuits); 1996 - 5; 1992 - 16; 1988 - 24; 1976 - 61 (the all-time record until 2009, when 67 were set, 43 of those in eights days in Rome, those counts not counting the five standards disallowed and one that was never ratified). In Manchester, suits wars took off in a big way. The message delivered by head USA coach Mark Schubert, one that brought honesty to the debate about how much the suit of the hour was helping, was repeated by FINA at a meeting with manufacturers at which arena and adidas warned the international federation about the course it had taken. Arena boss Cristiano Portas had this to say some things to say too. Like Schubert's utterances, Portas's were laden with the truth of the matter. As for suggestions that Schubert was some kind of salesman for Speedo because he received money from the official kit maker to USA Swimming are somewhat ridiculous for two key reasons in the context of the moment: a, he was speaking to me and he knew that I knew (as did most who were not blind, for no secret had been made of it) who he was and what his allegiance to a suit maker was; and b, he was telling the truth about the only piece of kit that had courted massive publicity around the world at the time. In Manchester the show went on and Portas, those who recognised the truth in what he said, Alberto Castagnetti and those who recognised the truth in his labelling of the LZR as a piece of "technological doping" that would end in regrettable consequences, among others, were told once more, effectively, to "shut up, sit back and enjoy the show". I never did like circuses, all those doped lions and beared ladies, the strong man who'd eaten too many burgers, that kind of stuff. What I did like, what the late Castagnetti liked, what Dale Oen liked and many, many others, was swimming, with no taint from equipment that skewed the result. In Manchester, 18 world s/c records fell at the helm of a maelstrom of progress on the clock. In the 400m medley Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) took the crown in 4:26.52 ahead of two other women, Hannah Miley, GBR, and Mireia Belmonte, ESP, who also raced in LZR suits and inside previous world record. In the 4x100m free for men, the US and Dutch teams raced inside WR, in the 4x200m for women, the Dutch shattered the world record, while the next two team home, GBR and AUS also raced more than seven seconds inside previous world record. In the 4x100m freestyle Marleen Veldhuis brought the Dutch home to yet another gold with a 51.43 split, the fastest in history. The pace and quantity of it all was numbing and left editors back in offices asking: what the hell is happening? By October, 2008, when SwimNews published Suits Week parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, the answer to that question was patently obvious. John Leonard, head of ASCA, Phil Whitten, former editor of Swimming World, and Forbes Carlile, father of the pace clock and the taper and a man who had embraced tech-advances of an external kind all his life, met for lunch and asked each other: how do we stop FINA turning our sport into a circus? Carlile was and still is described by some as an oddball out of touch with the sport these days. But his fundamental thrust on suits from 1999 onwards was right and swimming history will treat him far more kindly than some who will not find a place in that history now do. In those post-Beijing days, FINA was a long way from accepting that they had indeed been ringmasters to a sporting farce but the advent of 100% polyurethane suits and the wearing of up to four suits at a time in Rijeka at the Euro s/c championships that December, coupled with a poolside show of force by European coaches, convinced swimming administrators that it was time to think again. LEN, the European body, agreed that there was a great deal wrong with the turn the sport had taken. A pity that their guest of honour that week in Rijeka, FINA President Mustapha Larfaoui, could not see it, and that remained the case even in Rome 2009, when at Congress just before the 168-nation penny dropped he urged members to reconsider before voting for the US proposal. They were in no mood to do any such thing, as it turned out (entry 11).
17. June 8. The Day the Contract Died. On his way to confirming himself as the most successful breaststroke swimmer in history, Kosuke Kitajima (JPN) threw down a gauntlet to his federation, took aim, fired and forced those in charge of swimming in Japan, including members of the ruling FINA Bureau and its commissions and committees to shred contracts with regional suit makers who had been left behind in a race started by an unexpected FINA claxon. On this day in June, Kitajima, in the face of instruction that he could not wear anything but what his federation told him to, donned a Speedo LZR and shattered the world 200m breaststroke record in 2:07.51. It tyore past the standard of rival Brendan Hansen, an American contracted to Nike, a company that would decide not to take part in suit wars and gave swimmers contracted to it permission to swim in performance-enhanceing equipment made by others and approved of by those in charge of FINA who had chosen to overlook the spirit of Rule SW10.7. Kitajima's message to his federation was clear: let me wear the suit I want to in Beijing and I can join compatriot Yoshiyuki Tsuruta in what has so far been a club of one member, the club of men who have retained an Olympic breaststroke crown. The 25-year-old's time swept him 0.99sec inside the 2006 mark of Hansen and 1.35 inside his own previous best. he said: "I feel like crying. I owe the world record to my ability, while the swimsuit also played a good role. I was confident of setting a record before racing today. I thank the Japanese swimwear maker and the swimming federation for giving me an opportunity to test the Speedo swimsuit." Two days later, the Japanese federation effectively tore up its contracts with three suit makers to allow the Japanese Olympic team to to wear whatever they wished. The hand that had fed the federation was now being bitten, with the consent of FINA. Federation vice-chairman Kazuo Sano told agency reporters: "In order to get the best results in Beijing, we took into account the opinions of the athletes and coaches. They are the ones who must deliver." They and their suits, it seemed. A leading Japanese paper wrote: "The three companies look set to accept the federation's decision. This would be a virtual admission that they have been swept aside in the development race to create the world's most optimal swimwear. The material used for the LZR Racer is made from chemical compounds - an industry that has been one of Japan's strongest. It is indeed a shame that Japanese companies have fallen behind Speedo in this contest." There was no mention made of the fact that they had fallen behind because no-one had told them that they were allowed to use non-textiles and "chemical compounds". Kitajima went on to retain both Olympic breaststroke titles and become the first swimmer in history to do so. Our analysis recalls those moments in this context: 100m breaststroke and 200m breaststroke.
16. August 15. Steffen Gets The Slip On Suits. If there was one whole nation that had reason to detest the events of 2008, it was surely Germany. Somewhat locked out of suit wars to all intents and purposes by virtue of a timing events that saw Speedo steel a march on rival suit makers with FINA's quiet acquiescence and turning of blind eyes when it came to interpretation of a rule that had long been perceived to include swim suits among "devices" that were not permitted to boost performance in an artificial manner, Germany faced yet another second-league set of results at an Olympic Games after its woes of 2000 and 2004. Its sponsor, adidas, had not yet had time to make a full poly booster suit that it believed would not have been acceptable to FINA. German swimmers, not among the strongest in recent years when it came to overcome self-erected psychological barriers on the biggest of occasions on the global stage, arrived in Beijing troubled and believing that they could not compete with rivals wearing LZRs. To some extent, they were absolutely right to feel that they were racing at a disadvantage if times set by swimmers in LZRs at Australian and US trials, among others around the world, were anything to go by. Step forward Britta Steffen, a woman who had left her own battle with psychology behind in a troubled period after the Athens 2004 Games. Beyond a post-Athens break, Steffen had sought professional help on the recommendation of her coach Norbert Warnatsch. Having consulted the psychologist that had helped Franziska Van Almsick before her, Steffen claimed three world records at the 2006 European Championships, including a 53.30 blast over 100m freestyle. By Beijing, Steffen did not only have psychology and physiology to rely on. She also had a suit that had been altered with her in mind since German trials in spring. Even so, there had been nothing to suggest that she would be wearing something that could do what the LZR appeared to be doing. On August 14, Steffen and world-record holder and world champion Libby Trickett struggled, the German scraping into lane 7 for the final, the Australian lane 8. The next morning, Steffen ended Germany's Olympic swimming misery with a 53.12sec victory 0.04sec ahead of Trickett (AUS), with Natalie Coughlin (USA) taking bronze in 53.39. Over in lane 7, next to Trickett in lane 8, Steffen swam an amazing race and exploited her situation perfectly. Trickett was her quarry to gold. Edgy off her blocks, Steffen turned last at 50m, in 26.04. Trickett was first, in 25.18. On the way home, Steffen clawed back the deficit stroke by stroke and with 5m remaining was almost level with the Australian. The momentum carried her home to the gold. Trickett tightening to a 27.98 return, Steffen home in 27.08, Coughlin in 27.87. Steffen faced the touch pad unable to look up. When she turned round, she felt Trickett's hand on her shoulder and then realised what had happened. Steffen had had a tough time with an eating disorder but worked hard to overcome troubled times. There is nothing like an Olympic gold medal to exorcise the ghosts of the past. "I wasn't expecting a medal, I just focused on myself and sometimes the outcome is not what you expect," said Steffen. Steffen, who became the first German since East Germany's Kristin Otto in 1988 to win this event, said she had wanted to race Trickett in the final. "It definitely wouldn't have been the same if she hadn't been there, I was the record holder, now she has it and you want to race the best," she said. "I wouldn't have wanted to win without her there and never known what would have happened if she had been there. She is the world record holder, but didn't win gold - that's what sport is like." The pair embraced over thelane ropes seconds after the finish. "I was really happy she was next to me, we had a good fight and we hugged at the end because we had enjoyed the experience," Steffen said. Trickett was thankful to be swimming the final at all after she capitalised on Chinese Pang Jiaying's disqualification to claim the last place in the final after she wore an old-style FS-Pro and clocked 54.10 in her semi-final. "I was ninth after the semi-finals, I was out of the final, so to get put in and come away with a silver is awesome," said Trickett. "I don't know how or why about yesterday, it was incredibly disappointing to be out of the final. I had another opportunity again, I didn't have that in Athens. But I was very grateful. That is standard in my career, I have had several ups and downs, I just took the chance given to me and did my best." That fate also served Steffen well. For it was by having Trickett beside her that she was able to act as greyhound chasing down the fastest hare in the field. On the last morning of finals, Steffen added the 50m crown ahead of American 41-year-old supermom Dara Torres, whose own tale holds a special place in swimming history.
15. August 16. Double delight for the best Brit in 100 years - since Henry Taylor (1908, 3 golds) at the first London Games. Melbourne 2007, pre-Beijing 2008: Ziegler, Manaudou, Hoff. None made it to the final - for different reasons. Even if they had, it may have made no difference whatsoever to gold. Rebecca Adlington, of Britain, might have been forgiven for declaring: "It doesn't get any better than this - I quit". She had just become the greatest Olympic swimmer Britain has seen since 1908, with two gold medals and a world-record performance that will, even with a nod to suits, go down in history as one of the most magnificent of all-time. Six days before Adlington, coached by Bill Furniss, had become the first British woman to lift an Olympic crown in the pool since 1960 and the first of either sex for 20 years when she won the 400m freestyle in a final that saw the defending champ, Manaudou, finish last, and the world record holder, Federica Pellegrini (ITA) locked out of the medals. In the 800m, Adlington crashed into uncharted waters with a world record of 8mins 14.10 in the 800m. We will never know what the LZR gave her, though we can say that Adlington had crashed through the 8:20 barrier earlier in the year wearing a textile suit. Here was a woman in superb form, a great technician too racing in an event that statistically was somewhat less affected by polyurethane panels than most others, and particularly so when compared to the massive margins of gain achieved among sprinters. Not even a 2009 season of 100% poly suits could get to Adlington's 800m effort, just as the full shiny numbers could not get to the 1,500m WRs for men and women either before the curtain closed on the circus of suit wars. The 800m WR standard had stood at 8:16.22 to the legendary American Janet Evans since August 20, 1989. That was the last standard remaining from the last millennium. The impact of the British teenager's tactics was devastating: by the end of 16 lengths at a pace few have dreamt of let alone imagined possible, the result sheet showed that six of the eight finalists had swum slower than their heats time. Adlington, who before the race had to lie down on the floor and ask teammates to talk to her to avoid "standing up and being sick because I was more nervous than I've ever been in my life", dealt a killer psychological blow by racing through a timewarp: the first turn was the last at which she was led; by 100m she was travelling as fast, at 59.37sec, as the speed in which Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller won his first Olympic 100m freestyle title, in 1924; at 400m, on 4:05.72 her time would have won the silver medal in the straight 400m at the 2004 Games in Athens; and by the end she was 2.12sec inside a standard that was set when she was six months old. Bill Furniss, her coach at the Nova Centurion club in Nottingham since she was 12, summed up the enormity of what had just unfold: "It's an awesome achievement. This has been an awesome Olympics. It's frighteningly fast but I think that Rebecca’s performance is right up there with all the best swims. That's got to be one of the all-time great swims. It's such a magnificent record and to take it down by so much - and in the morning ... The other girls couldn't repeat, couldn't back up on their heats swims. She just destroyed the record - and destroyed the field." Adlington was the fifth woman to win the 400m and 800m double after four Americans: Meyer (1968), Tiffany Cohen (1984), Evans (1988) and Brooke Bennett (2000). "I can't believe it, I went out so quick. It's fantastic that all the hard work over the years has paid off, I'm so pleased," she said. “At 400m, I thought ‘that's ony half-way’.” The pain set in sometime between 500 and 600: "It just hit me how fast I'd gone out. I just stuck with it, just tried to go with it. Just kept thinking about what I had to do. When I realised I was on my own I just went for it.” Adlington punched the air, waved to teammates, slapped the water and sought out the place in the crowd where mum Kay, who gave up her career as a PA when her 12-year-old daughter’s talent shone through, and dad Steve, co-owner of a steel manufacturing company, had been standing for the last 200m of the race, Union flags flying, voices scorched with passion. "We are the proudest parents in Beijing,” said Kay through floods of tears. "Mrs Phelps must be pretty proud too but we are just overjoyed. It’s just unbelievable." Furniss said of his charge: "Talent comes in different ways. She had physical takent and I've coached swimmers who've had great physical talent but she's got a psychological talent as well. She's got an inner strength. She just hates to lose, and she's driven. She's been under such pressure. She was nervous today. Really nervous. But I told her that's just human and its your body just getting you ready for what you have to do. If you can embrace that and it doesn't throw you ... and she did just that. There's a lot of swimmers who can stand on the block and under the most intense pressure they just crack. And there's a few swimmers who stand on the block and they get better. She's one of those. That's the main talent. She's just a winner." His first words to her after the 400m were “Rebecca Adlington - Olympic champion” because he wanted to be the first to speak the honour. Yesterday, he said: “What have you gone and done?!” Taken an axe to expectation, that’s what. “When she turned in 2mins 01 at the 200m, I was standing with the other coaches and they said 'that's a bit fast'. I said 'no, its not, because she just looks so easy'. She just floated to 2minutes 01. She has an awesome technique. Everyone talks about the work that swimmers do. And we do have a punishing regime. But we do as much work on technique. The limiting factor is technique. The thing that will make the difference is technique. The thing that will win it is technique." Consistently training near to world-record pace - and in textile - helps too. "When you work with someone day in and day out and you see some amazing things and sometimes its difficult to keep your mouth shut because its just amazing what you're seeing. She swims four of five sessions a week at world-class pace. People have been asking me if I'm surprised," said Furniss. "Yes, I'm surprised but part of me is not. It's only a surprise in that you don't expect it all to come together in that point in time. But I knew she was capable of doing that time. I think that down the line there's more to come." Adlington repaid the compliments with one of her own: "I wouldn't be here without Bill [Furniss, her coach], I've been with him since I was 12 or 13. I wouldn't have been able to do this without him."
14. August 17. For a man who spent a decade constantly crediting his coach and the US team around him for playing a key role in helping him to live his dream, Michael Phelps could have wished for no better end to the greatest all-round Olympic performance of all-time: by claiming the 4x100m medley relay crown with teammates, in a world record of 3:29.34, the Baltimore Bullet had not only matched Mark Spitz's legendary seven in one but had gone one beyond for an historic eight gold medals - in China, where the No8 is said to be lucky. There was nothing lucky about Bob Bowman's Phelpsian Symphony. It was planned for, plotted for, sweated for, each note wrung out of every chord below and above the line, the positive and negative fed into the machine and devoured as if made of the same fodder required to see it through, to rehearse nothing but the best, to go where no Olympic athlete had ever gone before. The day before the eighth wave was epic. Hollywood could hardly have scripted a more dramatic conclusion to the Phelps-Bowman quest to match the record seven gold-medal tally that has stood to American swimmer Mark Spitz since 1972. By 0.01sec, the smallest permissible margin in the pool, the 23-year-old from Maryland, retained the 100m butterfly title in 50.58sec, an Olympic record, his bullet-like crash into the pad out-spiriting the soft, but urgent glide of Milorad Cavic's silver lining for Serbia. In victory, Phelps lifted a $1m bonus from Speedo, designer of the controversial LZR Racer that he had worn in various cuts and profiles all week. The money went to set up his foundation, the medals went into the biggest Olympic collection in history: 14 golds in two Games, for five more orbs than the nearerst sporting immortals, Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi , Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina, Spitz and American track and field star Carl Lewis. With two bronzes from Athens 2004, Phelps was also eyeing an overall medals tally of 16, one more than previous record holder, Soviet gymnast Nikolai Andrianov. Phelps turned seventh at the half-way mark of the 100m 'fly final before building up a massive momentum as he clawed his way back into contention on the way home to history. Omega timing was called into question. The story never did hold water, the explanation of how a light fingertip finish gets punished by a killer-whale-attack-of-a-finish having been told before to those who follow swimming. It will be told again too. The bottom line: Phelps stopped the clock first. End of story. Spitz described Phelps' journey as "epic". The 58-year-old pioneer of 1972 was to be found in Detroit, watching one of his two sons play in a basketball tournament. When NBC caught up with him, the living legends met across a screen and Spitz said: "I wondered what I was going to say at this monumental time when it would happen and who I would say it to, and, of course, I thought I was going to say it to you (Phelps) for some time now. The word comes to mind: epic. What you did tonight was epic. I never thought for one moment you were out of that race. You represent such an inspiration to youngsters around the world." And more later from a dream career kept alive by one of the highlights of 2008, the 4x100m free home-coming blast of Jason Lezak that swept the US past France and in other circumstances would deserve a plinth of its own. On August 11, the USA 4x100m freestyle relay, led by Michael Phelps in 47.51, the third fastest ever (by end-2009 8th) looked to be in trouble as Alain Bernard, a favourite for the solo 100m crown, was the first anchor to hit the water. Lezak took his and everyone else's breath away with a 46.06 effort that helped the US to shatter the world record in 3:08.24. The standard had stood at 3:12.23 since the heats the night before. The time, split and total, owed to the suit being worn - without a shadow of a doubt. France claimed second in a European record of 3:08.32, Bernard, having entered the water almost a body up on Lezak, crushed by the moment, by the man who swam over him and by his own 21.27 opening 50m split. Australia took bronze in a Commonwealth record of 3:09.91. The 3:12.72 WR that the US had clocked in Melbourne 2007 was no longer among the best 10 times ever, while Lezak had leapt out of his 50% poly skin, racing inside previous bests of 47.58 from a standing start and 47.32 in a relay off a flying start. Phelps, of course, was delighted, though by then some were already suggesting that his success was "inevitable" and therefore even "boring".
I wrote as I found at the time: "As for the Bowman's 8th Symphony in Phelps being inevitable, I point to the sunset, to the migration, to the flight of swallows, to the birth of a child - all inevitable. All glorious." Regardless of the suits, I still feel that way, as do most who were there to witness a truly magnificent episode in the history of sport, one that we were incredibly privileged to see in our time. Those who throw back the suits question over Phelps and his eight - and those who do that are mostly people who wish to justify the circus and would have had it continue to the death of swimming - wish to lump him in a vat with the 43 world marks of Rome 2009, to place him as just one of myriad dots along the crest of a tidal wave of improvement on the clock around the world from many a diverse programme, the placing of the dots often altered by virtue of a morphology advantaged or disadvantaged because of a suit and for no other reason that a suit, regardless of hard work, commitment and all those things that have been a part of the world of swimming for decade after decade but had never before been drowned out to such a breathtaking extent as was the case with apparel that in 2008 and more so in 2009 shifted a technique-based sport into the realms of an equipment-based sport and in so doing severed the thread of history along which the lifeblood of lore is carried. There can be no question, however, that Phelps is the finest example of a swimmer who simply does not belong in the world of generalisations, even those that work well in the context of their nature. In Rome 2009, we saw how the percentage of poly on a swimmer's skin dictated not only the time on the clock but the result accompanying it. Ask just about anyone in swimming circles if, hand on heart, they truly believe that Phelps wearing textile against anyone else wearing textile in Beijing would have lost a race and the answer will be "no". Ask the same question of several results for several swimmers in Rome 2009 a year on and the answer would have to be "yes" for anyone who sees the difference between such examples as that given in entry 19 above: Coventry 1.5sec up from one season and suit to another; eight of her key rivals an average of 6sec faster from one season and suit to another over 200m. Results were skewed by suits in 2008 and even more so in 2009 and only a nutcase or self-serving fibber would say otherwise, but there were results in Beijing 2008 that rang as true as they would ever have been, Phelps's eight among them, not least of all because we can place them in the context of a long success story. Sadly, in far too many cases in 2008 and 2009, that comparison with a world gone by cannot be applied, in some cases because of a swimmer's age and time at the top of the sport and in other cases because swimmers who in 2008 and more so in 2009 claimed big prizes on the podium and in the world-record books had a long pre-2008-09 history of significantly lesser results and achievements and in a time of suits had managed to leapfrog, in some cases spectacularly so, rivals who had previously, well ... wiped the floor with them. It was a message that coach Bob Bowman would not get until Superfish was beaten by a world-class swimmer who donned a 100% poly suit and slid 4sec past himself, 2sec past Thorpe at his best and a second past Phelps at his best over 200m freestyle in summer 2009. On the eve of leaving Beijing, Bowman spoke about what had gone and what was still to come.
13. August 20-21, 2008. Marathon Measures Up. Open water had had a tough journey in between its 1991 world champs debut on the Swan River in Perth (what a fabulous dawn it was too seeing them off on the sand and cycling the riverbank for a 25km race that promised so much) through years of development in which the sport seemed destined to be a circuit of the same 50 or so athletes touring the globe in search of similar results to a 2005 decision to add the 10km to the Olympic Games programme. Or perhaps returned, some might say: there had, after all, been a 1,200m race in the Bay of Pireaus in 1896 and in 12ft waves, as recalled by winner Alfred Hajos (HUN) when he said: "Three small boats took us out to the open sea, which was quite rough. My body had been smeared with a half-inch-thick layer of grease ...". Enough of all that. In Beijing 2008, the event was somewhat more millpond like and held promise. It did not disappoint, even though some purist open water folk, up against some hungry pool sharks, compared conditions in the Olympic rowing venue at Shunyi to a giant swimming pool. The women were up first, on August 20. After leading from start until 400m from the finish line British training partners Keri-Anne Payne and Cassandra Patten, coached by Sean Kelly at Stockport, claimed silver and bronze behind eight-time world champion Larisa Ilchenko, of Russia. Ilchenko did what she had done so many times before: she swam at the feet of the leaders throughout the race before making her move with 750m remaining. Ilchenko won in 1 hour 59.27 minutes, 1.5sec ahead of Payne, with Patten a further 1.8sec adrift. In 16th was an inspiration for all of them and all of us: South African Natalie du Toit, the first amputee to qualify for the Olympic Games proper who in 2002 had become the first disability swimmer to make a Commonwealth Games final - over 800m free at that - among the able-bodied. Her story is well-told and will carry meaning, hope and spark down the generations. Du Toit removed her carbon-fiber prosthetic left leg before diving in on her way to an effort just 1min 22.2 behind the champion seven years after losing her leg below the knee in a motorcycle accident. "I don't even think about not having a leg, and if I want to keep competing I will have to continue to qualify with the able-bodied," said Du Toit. "Hopefully I'll be back for 2012 (London Olympics), where I'll be hoping for a top-five finish." Du Toit's effort was lauded by her rivals, with Ilchenko suggesting the South African be given a separate gold medal. "I want to compliment her on being so strong and so brave," said the Russian. Those sentiments were echoed by the British pair, Payne and Patten both saying that thay had "tremendous respect" for Du Toit and considered here the hero of the day. Payne and Patten also made history - as the first swimmers to race in the pool at the Games (Payne on medley and Patten in the 800m free, and in the final at that, her presence noted for the fact that she leapt across the lane to hug teammate and champion Rebecca Adlington and then addressed The Queen via the BBC and British press, called on Her Majesty to "make my friend a Dame, Queenie". As to her own medal, she dedicated it to Lucy, her sister, on hand in Beijing and celebrating her 19th birthday. Patten and Germany's Angela Maurer exchanged words on the pontoon after the race. "I had my legs pulled," Patten said. "I'm just annoyed because I didn't get to savour looking up and coming in third because of that negative. It's unsportsmanship. I would never pull on someone's legs so I would never assume someone would do it to me. But at the end of the day, I've got one of this (medal) and she hasn't, so that's enough." It was not the first time that Patten had spoken up about the physicality of the open water pack. On the eve of pool racing in Beijing, she and teammate David Davies, coached by Kevin Renshaw, suggested that fists would fly when the marathon got underway. Facing what would be his first season and only third 10km race ever, Davies recalled some hairy moments he'd already experienced, saying: 'You just have to take it, it's part of the sport and you just have to take it and accept the fact that it's not going to be an easy ride. The last couple of races I've tried to swim out in front to try and stay out of trouble but it could be different this time. You just don't know what's going to happen, you have 'to think on your feet' and adapt to what happens ... you do swim on top of each other and you get the odd fist in your face, but I do really enjoy it. It's not a violent sport, but it just happens that it's up close and personal." Patten, like Davies a silver medallist at the World champs in May that year, said: "I normally give them the three strikes. The first strike's an accident, the second strike 'you're playing on a dodgy line there', and the third time I give 'em one back... I'm a big girl so I can look after myself." Davies, sitting alongside Patten, quipped: 'You know it's intentional when the girls take their hand-bags to the starting line." None did, as far as we could tell, while the men lined up with serious intent a day later, and once again there was drama in the race and in the lore behind it. Maarten van der Weijden (NED) goes down not only as the inaugural swim marathon Olympic champion but a man who achieved that height after recovering from cancer. His victory came at the end of a gigantic tussle with Davies and Thomas Lurz (GER), coached by his brother Stefan, in the closing kilometre of a race swum at a speed many a spectating pool swimmer said on the day that they simply could not fathom. Van Der Weijden, 27 and a monster of the waves at 6ft 7, was just 20 when he was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukaemia. Given only a slim chance of survival, his treatment included chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. A towering hulk of a man, he relied less on physical size than the magnitude of his mental capacity to deal with pain, pay attention to detail and draw of experience. "The pain and fatigue that you feel in the water is what I went through for a whole year to beat the cancer, so, I know what to expect." Given a new lease of life, Van der Weijden said that he no longer left anything to chance. He had spent his nights in Beijing sleeping in a low-oxygen tent in his room at the Olympic Village to simulate high-altitude conditions and wearing glasses fitted with lights that wake him up fast and help him to produce naturally what the Dutch team doctor described as “higher levels of cortisone” and conquer pain. Cees-Rijn van den Hoogenband, the Dutch team doctor and father of the marathon champion’s best friend, Pieter, the 100m Olympic champion of 2000 and 2004 said that teammates had constantly teased Van der Weijden for sleeping in a high-altitude tent. “We are always joking with Maarten: ‘go back to your tent, dog, get back in your kennel’. But he will do what it takes to win, like Pieter. When Pieter said ‘goodnight, see you at nine’, Maarten said ‘no, no, no - I want you there with me at 6am - you have to talk to me, tell me jokes, keep me company.” Van den Hoogenband, his pool career at an end after he raced in a record fourth 100m final at the Water Cube, did just that. Now, the distance ace is set to follow the former sprint king as the Dutch Athlete of the Year. Davies, a 1,500m finalist days before and 30-lap bronze medallist in 2004, took the same tactic as teammates Payne and Patten had the day before, breaking to the front from the start in order to stay out of trouble. Drafting in swimming was estimated by the English Institute of Sport to save 15% on energy. A lot of energy was saved in the Beijing race drafting behind Davies that day. He led for most of the way. About 2.km out from the finish, Lurz made a break, taking a pack of seven with him, including all the favourites for the crown. Davies hung on and with 1km to go made a sudden surge, opening up a lead of some 10m at one stage. The Dutchman, Lurz and world champion Vladimir Dyatchin (RUS) followed. At some stage in the next 200m, the Russian was given a red card, his race over. With 400m to go, all three survivors had to swerve across the course into the path of the home-straight lane lines. Davies, dazed, erred. So did Lurz. Van der Weijden seized the day and the title that Davies said might have been his but for his lack of ability at the end to swim in a straight line. "I’d really like to swim in the Serpentine in London in four years time," said the Brit. "It’ll be a fantastic spectacle. I hope by then I’ll be able to swim straight, learn all the tactics and get some meat on me to bounce them all off. I hope to go one better in London in front of a home crowd in four years time."
12. July 23, 2009. One entry must serve for the most ridiculous of lost seasons the sport has ever suffered. And to those now trotting out their shiny suit eras manta of "that's unfair to the swimmers", I could not agree more: on a list of 100 top memories how on earth would you make provision for 43 world records in eight days and 250 or so in two years, more than all the efforts of the previous eight years put together. Answer - you don't. Instead, my abiding memory will be of the events of July 23 and 24 and the the few races at Rome 2009 world championships that stood out from the stampede because of their relevance to the call and need for a mistake to be put straight. July 23 was a great day for swimming: from that moment, the FINA executive had no choice (and we understood that the incoming regime wanted no choice, for its mind was made up) but to rid the race pool of shiny suits: at Congress, 103 nations voted for a change to Rule SW10.7 to read:
No swimmer shall be permitted to use or wear any device or swimsuit that may aid his/her speed, buoyancy or endurance during a competition (such as webbed gloves, flippers, fins, etc.). Goggles may be worn. Any kind of tape on the body is not permitted.
We wrote: "That means this: all use of non-textile fabrics ought to be barred from 2010."
And 24 hours later, they were - after some telling and truthful comments from many - including the head coaches and the US and Australia, Mark Schubert and Alan Thompson - of those who had cheered the LZR Racer into the pool in 2008 but were now ready to hold up their hands and acknowledge that a mistake had been made. this from Jim Wood, President of USA Swimming, who described as "discouraging" the constant process of talking to FINA but feeling as if much was falling on deaf ears and summed up swimming's crisis in these words: "In all honesty ... that shareholders are the millions of hard-working athletes around the world. It is time for us to take action if [FINA] won't. This is a situation where ALL need to be concerned with fairness. Suits no longer help swimmers reach their potential. There has to be fairness or we have no sport." The USA, key player in bringing the LZR to life, had turned around. As Michael Phelps would put it in the context of his own life and lore: "It doesn't matter if you make a thousand mistakes, as long as you don't repeat any of them." That message was understood by the vast majority of swimming nations represented at Congress on July 24: 168 nations (7 against) backed the USA proposals to return to textile suits in 2010 and to cut back on the profile of suits that will lead to a ban on the bodysuit. Swimming would be revived as a technique-based sport free of the taint of p-e from apparel. The FINA Bureau was yet to confirm - but it would so just that. At first, there was an attempt to fudge the issue. It could be, we were told, that May 2010 would be the earliest date from which any start to a ban on the circus could be enforced, for suit makers would have to adjust. No mention of swimmers having to adjust, or coaches, or programmes or federations or the sport itself. But then it had been FINA who had let the monster out of Pandora's p-e box and now it was going to be hellishly uncomfortable whacking the worm back in and slamming the lid on it. Something had to give. It did: on July 28, Michael Phelps lost the 200m free crown, gained in textile jammers, and his world record, set in LZR jammers, to Paul Biedermann (GER) and a 100% polyurethane bodysuit that helped a talented, hardworking swimmer go well beyond expectation: a 4sec improvement over 200m and a 6sec gain over 400m past Ian Thorpe's monumental world record that would still be standing the test of time had it not been for the advent of non-textile fabrics. Biedermann was gracious in victory, his coach Frank Embacher among the first to speak about the difference the suit had made - he put it at up to 0.7sec a length, a staggering sum but one that would have left the German with pbs and medals. "We will never know..." applied not only to losers but winners too in Rome. There could be no doubt, however, that the race would have been much tighter, and perhaps a fair bit different had the suits not been significant. Bob Bowman, coach to Phelps, said this after the 200m final: "We've lost the history of the sport. Does a 10-year-old boy in Baltimore want to break Paul Biedermann's record? Is that going to make him join swimming? It took me five years to get Michael from 1:46 to 1:42 and this guy has done it in 11 months. That's an amazing training performance. I'd like to know how to do that. I'd like to know how to do that. I laughed when I read Craig Lord’s stuff on suit enhancement. I didn't believe it. I believe it now. I would be perfectly happy if we adjust all the records starting with the LZR. If we took them all out and went back to 2007. Even those in Beijing. We can have them in a separate list. These were done in polyurethane suits and then these are done in textile suits. Then we can start over in January and make the sport about swimming. I just said to Doug Frost [Thorpe's mentor], the two of us were erased in three days. It took no time, what took us 12 years together (to build). It makes me wonder why I still want to keep doing this. Why would I take another 13-year-old and bring him through, because once he gets there, there's is nothing to shoot for. Once the suits are taken out we would never get there (to Biedermann's time). There should be separate lists for polyurethane and textile suits, so we can start over in January. I think these records need to be kept apart. They [FINA] can expect Michael not to swim until then, because I am done with this. They have to implement this immediately. This is a shambles. They better do something or they are going to lose the guy that fills all these seats. We have lost the history of the sport. That would be my recommendation for him not to swim internationally. This mess needs to be stopped right now. This can't go on any further."
How right he was. the FINA executive heard urgency whistling in its ears - and 24 hours on, the date of death by guillotine for bodysuits and non-textiles was set at January 1, 2010. The suits make a difference," Biedermann said. "Last year, it was Speedo. This year, it's Arena. I hope there will be a time when I can beat Michael Phelps without these suits. I hope next year. I hope it's really soon." Soon will surely come soon enough. But back in Rome, Phelps did what he is so brilliant at doing: he not only picked himself up but devoured defeat like an energy food bar, spat out the wrapper and, in a hugely entertaining episode, war of words and all, with Milorad Cavic (SRB), drove his determination to turn things around into a sizzling, gladiatorial 100m 'fly final that saw two men in their suits dip below 50sec for the first time. We will never know where Ian Crocker and his stunning 50.40 of 2005 fits into that picture - and more's the pity. That said, those 49-plus seconds and the deck-side overspill produced the highlight of Rome for the pure worth of showtime, the key to it the insatiable human spirit that refuses to be beaten, with a hefty dose of head-butting and "I'll take you and your army" thrown into the mix. Here's how we wrote it up on the day.
Some of the worst moments in the sport's history were marked by the flip-flopping of decision makers on what could and could not be worn. Suits were in, then out, then in again. World records were broken in suits not approved and times never ratified. Rome 2009 could have been saved the worst of it all but the Italian federation, in the wake of coach Castagnetti's charge of technological doping, had decided that two wrongs did make a right, dumped its long-time suit partner for newcomer Jaked and went down a wrong road. Why wrong? Because members of the federation with links to LEN and FINA and Roma2009 had direct financial interests in the new kit provider. The reasons why the Jaked01 got back in but the arena X-Glide and other suits had to be ammended (in a way that made no difference to their p-e properties) were political and financial and had nothing to do with the interests of swimmers. The panel of scientists hired to prove the science of p-e but delivered a brief that was effectively stamped "please don't prove too much" under the terms of the flawed Dubai Charter, was rendered lame by the lack of political will at the highest levels of FINA to rid the sport of what the US federation and Congress would then have to do for them.
A brighter note was to be found in the appointment of scientists who would be called on to say what a suit might be made of, though in 2009, FINA restrictions on its own experts dictated a Roman circus of farcical proportions. In Rome, there were so many moments that were the best of it and so many that marked the worst of it. The lowest of the low was hidden from TV cameras and the public: down in the bowels of the Foro Italico, rows of white beach huts created the first human pit stop in swimming history . The temperatures down there often soared above 35C in the day. It was like a scene from the days of the arena (not the suit maker, the pit with the lions in it and Cesar in the Gods, his thumb sometimes up, sometimes down. It was distinctly down for the queues of young athletes who waited in those terrible tunnels for up to four hours a day just so that they could borrow a suit that would make them "competitive", some so that they could spend 45 minutes or more squeezing into a bodysock of a suit only to suffer the indignity of a rip just before a race. Never again, let FINA note, should young athletes and others be treated in such a disgraceful manner. It has been unbelievable here," said Denis Pursley, Britain head coach. "We have seen kids waiting in line practically begging for suits, standing in line in oppressive heat for two hours just to get a suit. Hopefully, now that FINA has done the right thing, we will never seen athletes treated like this again."
And that was the best of it too. For the spirit of sport, comradeship, shared experience was tangible among athletes day after day as the circus progressed. Take this list of heroes: David Dunford (KEN); Cullen Jones (USA); Amaury Leveaux (FRA); Stefan Nystrand (SWE); Duje Draganja (CRO); Konrad Czerniak (POL); Graeme Moore (RSA). When George Bovell (TRI) had a "wardrobe malfunction that only his mother could fix", according to the poolside commentator in Rome, just before walking out for the 50m freestyle semi-final, officials told him: "the race must go without you". Which is when the other seven blokes said: "No way. We'll wait for him. He has a right to race." Solidarity in the sprint club. Bovell came out in something shiny and clocked 21.65, the same time as Krisztian Takacs (HUN). The next semi came and Fred Bousquet (FRA) and his Jaked cracked out a 21.21 championship record. That fell to Bovell, on 21.20, in the swim-off. He wore something shiny. One of the heroes who saw the value in fairness in the competitive arena of the modern era, David Dunford, was most familiar with wardrobe malfunction in a time of silly suits and circus. Last year, when the US-based Dunford brothers sought out LZRs, David was delivered of one but Jason was told that he was built to the wrong proportions. Imagine that - a sport in which swimmers might stay clear of if a suit maker couldn't make something to fit them. The first Kenyan world and Olympic finalist, Jason Dunford looked just about perfectly proportioned for swimming speed and success in Beijing and again in Rome. he found something to fit him but ripped three Jakeds. What a waste of time, energy and effort but it was what swimmers had to put up with in the shiny suits era, which for some ended as Rome waved goodbye. Phelps stayed true to his word and as autumn brought the first round of new-season competitions, Phelps was to be found on world cup tour in Europe wearing textile jammers and making the circus of the suits all the more obvious in a sea of shiny suits on the skins of those who sought to lay down a few more poly markers so that they may test themselves in textile once Christmas was done. Suit wars started with the LZR and win, win, win for Speedo in Beijing. The war will rumble on for a while but the last say on p-e bodysuits was arena's, and here is why: the Rome medals table and world-record bonus count.
11. November-December 2009. Phelps leads the way out of the shiny suits era. He came, he lost, he conquered. While some squeezed into their shiny suits right to the bitter end of a sad chapter in swimming history, the greatest swimmer of all time raced on the world cup circuit and at the Duel in the Pool USA Vs a European Select wearing textile jammers. He was there to lay down a marker for the coming season. His efforts and those of some of the swimmers who finished ahead of him highlighted not only the place in which he found himself on the scale of fitness after a post-Rome 2009 break but also the farce and unfairness of a sport in which race conditions are ranged against those who chose to swim in X and ranged in favour of those who chose to swim in Y - and caution is urged when using the term choice, for it was choice that drove Germany, for example, from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage between 2008 and 2009. Phelps ended the shiny suits era by noting that "you can make a thousand mistakes as long as you don't repeat any of them". That was not aimed at the introduction of the LZR Racer in 2008 by Phelps, but it might well have been aimed at that and FINA, for allowing the intruder to get past the gatekeeper in the first place. Phelps and his coach Bob Bowman, to their credit, played a key role in not only providing the billboard entertainment of the decade in the race pool but helping swimming to turn back on a dark path and find a better way. Their last extensive interview of the decade was instructive, and you can read what the men had to say here (part 1) and here (part 2).
Next Week: The top 10 countdown, with a difference
The Top 100:
Part I: 91 - 100, the year 2000.
Part II: 81 - 90, the year 2001.
Part III: 71 - 80, the year 2002.
Part IV: 61 - 70, the year 2003.
Part V: 51 - 60, the year 2004.
Part VI: 41 - 50, the year 2005.
