Across all sports, the integrity of competition lies in a level playing field that ensures the champion is the better athlete. Despite this there are always going to be variables to a certain degree in sports; some of these variables could be different types of cleats used in sports such as football or soccer, or different types of racquets in tennis. Most of the time these variables are accounted for and regulations are created to ensure equality between competitors. Occasionally there are drastic changes to what is available in terms of boosting an athlete’s abilities; these are unaccounted-for variables.  An example of an unaccounted-for variables could be illegally enhanced performance by the use of banned substances such as steroids. In most cases these changes are not easily seen. For instance, in baseball if a batter is taking steroids the number of homeruns that he hits per season could increase by something like ten percent, but in a sport like swimming a change of ten percent is made much more evident. This is because swimming is a very straightforward, black and white sport. It is just the swimmer in their lane against the competitors in the lanes around them. All the competitors have one common goal and equal opportunity to reach that goal. The goal of course is to put a hand on the wall first and faster than anyone ever has. Just like most other sports, swimming has different equipment that some athletes prefer and different training methods that other athletes prefer. Around fifteen years ago a sport that had very little tech or profitability surrounding it suddenly had a breakthrough. Just before the Olympic games in Sydney, Australia, Speedo (a swimming equipment company) released a swim suit that made swimmers up to three percent faster than the rest of the competition from a drag standpoint. Now seemingly overnight athletes that were sponsored by Speedo were at an immediate advantage, and those bound by the sponsorship contracts of other suit companies were put at an immediate disadvantage with nothing they could do. This is because if they used Speedo’s new tech they would be voiding their contract with their sponsor, and this would rip their funding and ability to get paid to swim. The use of polyurethane full-body high-tech swim suits in competition created the need for guidelines surrounding suit technology for athletes that would return the sport to a level playing field. Now that the “Tech Suit Era” has passed there needs to be changes to the way that records that were set in those suits are recognized to create equal opportunities to set records for the athletes of today.

For years in there were very little advancements in the sport of swimming.  Athletes have gone from swimming with suits that produced additional drag to then adding goggles that increased the racers ability to be aware of where they are in the water, and therefor execute a race more precisely. Next came the introduction of latex and silicone caps that reduced drag caused by hair and increased buoyancy of the head. The introduction of racing suits took the gradual and steady advancement of the sport by improved technique and better training methods and launched this progression forward wiping away the records of legitimate athletes that didn’t have the benefit of the suit. 

Below I have a graphic from a TED Talk given by David Epstein entitled “Are athletes really getting bigger, faster, stronger?” that shows the progression of the men’s one hundred meters freestyle, and how over time through progressions of technology in the sport the fastest time has dropped in step like changes rather than a smooth decline. The first step shows the introduction of using flip turn that helped competitors not waste precious time and momentum on their turn walls. After that improvement of technique technology takes over; there was the introduction of gutters that that minimized waves and current in pools by having waves just fall out of the pool rather than bouncing off of the walls and creating choppy waters. The third and last example is the introduction of polyurethane full-body suits that increased the athlete’s buoyancy, reduced muscle fatigue through muscle compression, and repelled water to reduce friction (Foster). 

In Epstein’s presentation about the progression of sports over time and how it has not been that humans are necessarily evolving and adapting into better athletes, but instead the training techniques, nutrition, body types of the athletes that participate, and mainly the technology behind the equipment used by the athletes that has helped progress the sport far beyond what swimming used to be. Epstein talks about track and field, and the reasons that runners today are faster than they were in the Jessie Owens era. He attributes this to the change of track surface and cleats. Through the comparison of the surfaces from a physics standpoint Epstein comes up with a mathematical conversion that shows what Jessie Owens would run today if he had the better cleats and track surface (Epstein). Epstein insinuates that making sports smarter has been the driving force for progress and advancements in athletics. Over time athletes also have found what body types work best for which sports. An example of this is Michael Phelps. Phelps has an arm span of six feet and seven inches, that is three inches longer than he is tall. Phelps also has a long torso that helps him move through the water much like a boat’s hull moves through water. Next he has shorter sturdy legs for snappy fast kicks and powerful pushes off turn walls (Daftardar). It is the combination of all these perfect traits that makes Phelps the perfect athlete for swimming. Despite his body being perfect for swimming this does not mean that his body could gain the most advantage from the suit.

At the 2009 swimming world championships in Rome a little-known swimmer by the name Paul Biedermann set two new world records in the two-hundred-meter and four-hundred-meter freestyle events (Alfonsi). Since this performance where he turned Michael Phelps into what looked like just another competitor, Biedermann has failed to come close to these times. Because of this, many attribute his success to the suit that he was wearing. This is so important because Biedermann stands at six foot five inches tall and weighs in at two hundred and twenty pounds (Alfonsi). This size is truly unusual for a swimmer and a body type like this would benefit so much from added buoyancy that the suits provided.

So, like previously states an aspect that made these suits so advantageous to the athlete is that it made them so much more buoyant in the water. Buoyancy is something that has been proven to help swimmer. This is shown in a study done by the University of Southern California that considered the levels of buoyancy on different athletes and how that effected their ability to swim fast. The study directly says, “Since swimming is done at the surface of the water, it is clear that the one who can stay at the surface without any effort is free to use all his energy for forward propulsion” (Stroup). Because of this artificial buoyancy that these suits produced athletes were being lifted higher in the water with no effort on their part, and therefore using less energy to propel themselves forward.

These new suits brought so much to what was a generally a quietly celebrated sport. All of a sudden swimming was much faster and therefore more exciting to watch. The athletes were not scantily clad in briefs any longer, but instead they wore suits of sleek swimming armor that were reminiscent of superheroes wearing their tight-fitting spandex. Usually swimming is only recognized on Olympic years, but in 2009, the year after the Beijing Olympics the sport was still making the news largely because of the suit controversy. Despite all these things that are generally seen as positives, athletes in general were not happy with the suits. Michael Phelps is quoted saying, "If you're ever going to compete at a high level and compete consistently, it's going to be because of the work you do in training” (Dillman). Here Phelps is talking about how the sport should be a product of your skill and preparation instead of the most cutting edge technology. In an article from the New York Times titled, "Swimming Bans High-Tech Suits, Ending an Era" the issue is defined as, “FINA did not have a bylaw expressly forbidding swimsuits that might aid speed, buoyancy and endurance” (Crouse). But there was not a law regarding this issue for a reason: swimming competitions had never had anything that would provide this sort of a benefit. The only comparable benefit to this would be anabolic steroids and there were rules against them, so what is the difference?

While the suits arguably added excitement to the sport the new technology also took away the integrity of the competition. Seemingly overnight athletes with different sponsors were pitted against each other, and supporters and protestors of the new tech were fighting. This fractured most of the community surrounding the sport into two factions. There were some people in support of the suit that wanted to move the sport in a whole new direction. Despite this the majority of people wanted to get rid of the suits and fight for the purity of the sport to stay intact. This means they are supporting swimming in its purest form; just the athlete in their lane with nothing to boost their confidence but the training that they have done. That means their confidence does not come from some suit granting them abilities that they have not worked for. In an interview with Bob Bowman who is Michael Phelps’ life-long coach talks about the training schedule that Phelps followed when he says, “We practiced twice a day, at seven a.m. before school and again for three hours after classes ended, in a pool where the only thing to focus on was the black lane line running its length” (Roberts). Swimming is not a glorious sport day in and day out. Swimming is early mornings, late nights, strict diets, endless hours in the pool, missing out on other things you might prefer doing, repetitive actions in hope that at the end of your season you can have one or two minutes of satisfaction from your labor. This is why so many people think that the suits are wrong. It is because swimming is a sport about earning it, not about who has the coolest or fastest technology. 

In NASCAR, there is a similar problem that they faced in their own sport. As technology has improved over time the cars got faster and faster, so the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing placed regulations on cars so that essentially everyone is driving a car that can do no more than anyone else’s car, and the race is a test of who is the best driver (Encyclopædia Britannica). This relates to swimming because by creating these suit guidelines the sport is a test of who is the best swimmer instead of who has the best sponsorship company with the fastest suit. 

FINA’s (Fédération Internationale de Natation or translated to English as International Swimming Federation) regulations today state that for men the suits cannot go below the knee or above the navel, and must be made of a textile material. “Textile Fabrics” are defined by FINA as “material consisting of, natural and/or synthetic, individual and non-consolidated yarns used to constitute a fabric by weaving, knitting, and/or braiding” (FINA) These changes were a huge adjustment to where swimming had come in the ten years before this, and essentially returned swim suits to their original purpose, to cover the athlete while they compete without hindering their performance. Still even with the “Jammer Rule” (jammer being a suit that covers the hips and thighs) and the “Textile Rule” suits still provide athletes with the benefit of some muscle compression and water resistance that helps the hips ride higher in the water and lets the athlete not get fatigued as fast while competing. While these new rules don’t completely prevent the athlete from gaining any benefit from the suits, they do create a ceiling that will keep the sport from seeing new records that are just from the newest technology (Foster). 

Today the record boards are tainted up and down with records broken in the “Tech Suit Era.” This is 2008 and 2009 when nearly every existing world record was broken and this largely attributed to these technological wonders. Still today nearly a decade later only a few of these records are new. Of the seventeen men’s individual long course swimming events competed in at the world championships only six are not from 2008 or 2009 when these suits were used (FINA). 

This is another point of controversy. How are we to look at records set in the “Tech Suit Era” when the suits were so much of an advantage? Should records set in suits that do not meet the regulations of today receive an asterisk denoting that they were wearing a tech suit or do we create an entirely separate record board? Swimming analysts all throughout the swimming community speculate that it will take several decades for new athletes to come around and break all the world records that were set with such a blatant advantage. 

As a swimmer myself, this issue has directly affected me. Even on my club swim team at home the record board was filled with records all set by athletes wearing the polyurethane super suits. These records are far beyond what any normal eighteen-year-old swimmer would be able to accomplish. Therefore, the suits needed to be outlawed. Not just because the athletes at the highest levels of the sport are being affected, but because everyone who calls themselves a competitive swimmer are being affected. Especially on the club and high school level the suits are hurting everyone. On average a full body top of the line polyurethane tech suit cost six hundred dollars or more depending on the model. At this level of the sport not everyone is willing to, or able to shell out hundreds of dollars on a suit that would only last a couple races just to make them level to the rest of the competition.  

In conclusion, the introduction of tech suits caused the sport of swimming to go in a direction different from what it was meant to be. Rather than a sport driven by training and heart, it was changed into a sport pushed by technology that left its roots behind as it moved further and further into technology.  The guidelines put into place have helped return swimming to the level playing field that it used to be. Now that the suits are indeed outlawed there needs to be changes to the record boards. If the suits are not legal for athletes to use them in competition of today, then why should they be compared to the athletes that received that benefit? The simple solution would be to change the record boards to show that records were set in these “tech suits.” Next FINA should recognize a new record board that shows only swims done in suits that are currently legal. 
