*Records achieved wearing performance enhancing bodysuits*

Suit breaks the man from The San Diego Union-Tribune on July 29, 2009

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This will be old news by the time this is posted (I am vacationing in SD, and have had terrible luck with the Wi-Fi at coffee shops over the past two days), but I wanted to weigh in on how swim apparel is currently scandalizing the integrity of the sport. Since reading this article this morning about Michael Phelps’ loss to German swimmer Paul Biedermann in the 200m free at the world swimming championships in Rome, I heard on the radio that Phelps has won and set a new world record in the 200 fly (Update 8/2/09: Phelps finished with five golds, one silver, and two individual world records). What I did not learn was if he had exchanged his Speedo LZR Racer for the Arena X-Glide, which Biedermann wore during his world-record breaking performance and which he acknowledges aided him in his effort. (I learned that of course he did not, but Dara Torres did!)

Phelps’ own suit, the LZR Racer, will be illegal in competition by next May, along with all other high-tech bodysuits. But this ban comes too late. High-performance suits were worn in last summer’s Beijing Olympics, and now this week’s world championships. Dozens of world records have fallen and will continue to fall between now and May 2010. We’ve heard the debate about whether MLB records achieved by steroid users should be identified as such. It makes perfect sense that swimming records earned by wearing state-of-the-art suits should also be asterisked. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for swimmers wearing pre-2008 swimwear to break the records set this week.

But should these suits really be banned? Unlike steroids users, users of high-tech swimsuits are not trying to conceal their performance enhancing equipment. It is worth pointing out that improvements in technology have been accepted in many other sports. Not all golf clubs or baseball bats are made equal. There’s no question that world records have fallen in track and field over the years due in part (mostly?) to improved footwear. And I doubt those have been designated with asterisks in the record books.

The best equipment comes at a greater cost. Sponsorships also interfere with some elite athletes’ choice of competitive gear. Last summer in Beijing athletes jeopardized their endorsement contracts by wearing the new and fast Speedo LZR despite which product they were supposed to be wearing. How embarrassing! And even more so now, since Phelps is the one whining even though this is the very suit he still wears. But if sponsorships were no issue, and the top-of-the-line swimsuit was available to all competitors, then how is this actually unfair?

Without fancy aquatic wear the records will continue to fall. When the results of competitive swimming were first recorded, athletes had day jobs. Now that the professional athlete is a full-time occupation, men and women devote their lives almost entirely to their chosen sport. They train harder than ever and maintain a healthy diet. But it is undeniable that the effect of these swimsuits casts a shadow over the purity of a sport that once was dominated by the strongest and hardest-working athlete and not by the athlete aided by the best technology.