FINA officially declare themselves retarded

[dakota]

As of this week swimming is about as credible as professional wrestling. They're great athletes but I don't believe a damn thing I see.

I even question the old world records. I wonder if this has been an issue for years. And of course any time a two second improvement can be attributed to the swim suit, or the lane barriers, or the design of the pool, or.... what a convenient smokescreen to obscure systemic doping.

It would be one thing to freeze the world records arbitrarily but it seems to me whoever's turn it is to be on top for one year gets to have a swimming world record as a matter of course these days. To freeze it on that is cretinously retarded.

When did swimming become Formula One motor racing? At least they still have overtaking.

[KevinM]

At up to 500 bucks a suit (and they don't last long), no, everybody can't get the technology. It creates an unacceptable financial wedge.

If $500 is an issue, you're not thinking about breaking WRs anyway. Guys aren't coming out of mud huts in Africa and into the pool. Swimming is a sport for middle class white people.

I agree for the most part, but FINA is the governing body of all of swimming - not just of the world class element of the sport, right? Seems logical that they would want to keep things reasonable for the lower level athletes as well.

[lexvid]

It seems that the "plastic fantastic" swimsuits aid quite a bit. You know all is not right when 179 WR's are set since February 2008 - 71 in 2009 to date.

For example, according to Craig Lord (Swimnews Online) the winner of the woman's 200 M breast stroke, Nadja Higl, dropped her PB by 8.26 sec's in about a month from 2:29.88 to 2:21.62.

In track that would be considered madness or implie other darker thoughts.

In Rome swimming became unrecognizeable and lost total connection with the past when they allowed suits that hydrofoiled instead of swam....

[guru]

National HS Federation bans the hi-tech suits.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/20 ... htm?csp=34

[eldrick]

a lot of these new wr holders are going to be shocked when the textile suits come in & their times slow by 2 - 3% & they find that their new times woud be lucky to win bronze at '05 wc ( last one with fairly normal suits )

of course, 1 man who will suffer little will be phelps who was taking huge chunks off wrs prior to suits revolution & in fact competed in slower suits ( speedo ) than the ultra-quick ones ( jaked & arena ) & often wearing just leggings

i believe phelps was one guy to whom the suits made no difference at all

he wore same speedo in peking as in rome & actually got quicker in most events off a severely curtailed training regime ( due to bong-ban & semi-retirement - he put on 20 pounds )

next year - full training regime will counteract return to textile suits for him

i expect him to more or less swim the same times - 95% of other wr holders won't