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Swimsuits Worse Than Steroids for Swimming
[November 27th, 2008] by Millard Baker
The most amazing performance-enhancing substance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was the material used to make the Speedo LZR swimsuit. The LZR has been called a form of “technological doping” by Italian swim coach Alberto Castagnetti. Marshal Cohen of the NPD Group says the LZR Racer is comparable only to anabolic steroids in its performance enhancing effects leading to world records.
Several are saying that the “technological doping” allowed in swimming has led to a serious lack of credibility more damaging than the steroids in baseball asterisk catastrophe (”Swimming’s record farce, by the numbers,” November 26).
Australia and the United States, the sport’s major powers, have realized what a farce this is and have called for bans on the suits that utterly transformed the sport.
If that happens, swimming will be left with a mess like the one track and field has with the dozen world records that still exist from 20 years ago, when most fans feel that state-sponsored Soviet Bloc doping (and catch-us-if-you-can doping in the United States) were significant factors in the setting of nearly all those records.
Ban the suits now, and swimming’s 2008 records may stand for decades.
That would be no more preposterous than the current situation, when swimming’s records stand for nothing.
Some bloggers feel the swimsuits have made a mockery of the sport leading to a serious credibility crisis (”Swimming’s credibility crisis: How FINA’s blind eye is affecting the purity of the sport,” November 25).
You may still believe this is not a problem, and that is, I guess, personal choice. The essence of the sport is the competition - the race - and so the times are the fineprint, you may argue. Does it matter that a gold is won in a time that does not rewrite the record books? Perhaps not. But as someone who comes from a track and field background, where world records are special and meaningful, swimming really does face a crisis of credibility. It can certainly not boast about a meeting in which 66 records are set - that’s not progress. Rather, it makes a mockery of the past, or the present (depending on your point of view).
And who is to blame?
But the point is, the technology exists, and FINA failed miserably to impose its admittedly weak laws on suit design back in April when they met about the suit. Now they must face the consequences. The trouble is, they don’t seem to care.
And apparently, Speedo may have paid FINA to permit the swimsuits.
FINA, the international swimming federation, has been accused of selling out (quite literally) to the swimsuit manufacturers — that means, accepting money to approve the suits that have rendered world records meaningless.
Oops.
Tags: doping, FINA, LZR racer, swimsuits, technological doping
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