No Olympics: Kwan says she won't return to skating

For Michelle Kwan, more school has trumped more spirals.
Kwan announced Friday she will not try for a return to competitive skating and an attempt at making the 2010 Olympic team.

Goodbye Vancouver. Hello, Tufts University. The five-time world champion, who graduated from Denver University in June, plans to pursue for a master's degree in international affairs at the Boston-based school.

 

Despite the fervent hopes of her fans, Kwan's Olympic legacy is all but sealed at one 2002 bronze medal and one 1998 silver. She will go down in history as the sport's most popular and accomplished skater never to have won Olympic gold.

 

Credit Kwan, 29, for being OK with that and moving on with her life. Recently, she has taken trips as a State Department envoy, and traveled to Beijing during the 2008 Summer Games.

 

"Skating will always be a part of me,” Kwan told The Associated Press. “But in the bigger picture of my life, I have always wanted to find a career that will allow me to make a positive contribution and difference in the world. Representing the United States as an American Public Diplomacy Envoy the past three years has been very rewarding, and I want to do more. Furthering my education will bring me closer to that goal, and I don’t want to wait any longer to continue the journey.”

 

Kwan, the nine-time U.S. champion, tantalized her followers by returning to the ice early this year to train for a possible comeback attempt. Inspired by swimmer Dara Torres, who won three Olympic medals in Beijing last summer at age 41, Kwan raised hopes for a return to competition. She signed up to skate in Kim Yu-Na's charity ice show, set for next month in Korea.

 

That would have been her first on-ice appearance before an audience since 2006, the year she was named to the U.S. Olympic team. She withdrew from the Turin Games because of injury.

 

Unlike Sasha Cohen, who won 2006 Olympic silver and announced a comeback of her own after two years away from competition, Kwan would have had to qualify through regional competition to make the field for the U.S. championships, set for January in Spokane, Wash.

 

Now, new adventures await.

Olympic watchdog group asks UN to monitor rights during 2010 Games

An Olympic watchdog group is asking the United Nations to send human rights observers to the 2010 Winter Games.
The Impact on Communities Coalition haVGs also filed two new complaints to the UN over civil rights and housing in the hopes of finding a way to hold organizers accountable for the way the Olympics affect those two areas.
While the complaints won't be heard until after the Games, group spokesperson Am Johal says they could be used to open up a much-needed international dialogue.
"Our ultimate aim is to see a reform in the Olympic bid process. It's flawed from the front end and we tend to see a recurrence of the same pattern in the cities hosting these Games," he said in an interview from Geneva after filing the two complaints.
The group is concerned that tenancy laws are not strong enough to prevent people from being evicted from their homes to make way for Olympic tourists.
While the city of Vancouver has established a permit system for Games-time rentals that could thwart some of the problem, critics say there's no way to police it.
Meanwhile, the group is also concerned that the confluence of Olympic-related city bylaws and rules the organizing committee has at venues will sharply curtail the right of free speech. Activists are also claiming they are being harassed by police who are seeking to meet with them to discuss protest plans for the Games.
The presence of observers could allow the Games to be a true case study for how an Olympics affects a community, Johal said.
Vancouver's city council recently amended its Olympic bylaws over concerns that language designed to protect the commercial rights of sponsors could be interpreted as prohibiting political protest.
At the same time, the security agency in charge of the Olympics continues to work with its civil rights advisory panel and has promised not to interfere with legal protests.
The IOCC was formed by a group of academics and activists after Vancouver won the bid in an effort to create a community organization that could work with organizers and the city on how to avoid some of the historically negative social impacts of an Olympics.
The organizing committee and government officials had signed a commitment to 14 areas, including accessibility, education and transportation, as well as housing and civil rights.
Activists say few of those guarantees have come to pass.
"By filing a complaint, it doesn't change the situation on the ground but it does take one small step in holding to account (Vancouver and international Olympic organizers) and the different government partners in terms of how they are organizing the Games and what if any impacts there are going to be on housing and civil liberties," said Johal.
Vancouver organizers point to a number of steps taken to try and mitigate the impact on the Games, including providing money for temporary housing to compensate for pressure on city shelters and supporting job training programs for venue construction.
A persistent issue is a concern that police are issuing thousands of tickets in the Downtown Eastside for infractions such as jaywalking in order to be able to jail the people who can't pay the fine during the Games.
City councillors promised to try and reverse some of those tickets after activists disrupted a council meeting last week.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SWIMSUIT WAR

This month's crackdown on slick swimsuits marks a rare retreat in the technological arms race (and legs race) that has dominated international sports - but it doesn't mean the multimillion-dollar quest for a high-tech edge is over.
"We've already started to think about what kinds of things we'll be doing for 2012," said Rick Sharp, an exercise physiologist at Iowa State University who has played a key role in the swimsuit wars. Then he added with a chuckle, "I can't tell you what those are."
Sharp was part of an outside team of experts - also including NASA engineer Stephen Wilkinson - who helped Speedo develop its full-body LZR Racer ("laser racer") swimsuit for last year's Beijing Olympics. Swimmers wearing the bodysuit (including Olympic superstar Michael Phelps) broke records galore, and that led competitors to ask angrily whether using the suit amounted to "technological doping."
Swimsuit tech has been making headlines for almost 10 years, starting with the "Fastskin" suits introduced by Speedo for the 2000 Olympics. The idea was that the suits' V-shaped ridges, modeled after shark scales, would cut down on drag and let the swimmer slide faster through the water.
Sharp's specialty is testing the claims for improvements in sports performance. For instance, did shaving body hair have a measurable effect on a swimmer's performance? (Yes, it did.) OK, so did wearing that sharkskin suit have a measurable effect? (Um, no, not really.)
"Because of that work, yeah, Speedo came to me and asked me to help with research and development," Sharp told me on Tuesday.
With an assist from Sharp and his colleagues, Speedo tested a variety of drag-reducing designs and fabrics to come up with a suit that would have a measurable effect. "Basically, it's a matter of having a garment on that will reduce the water resistance as much as possible," Sharp explained.
Part of the challenge is the kind of material you use, and where you use it. The Speedo team came up with a design that put panels of polyurethane over parts of the body that produce the highest drag. Another part is the suit design: You don't want a suit that traps water as it flows around the swimmer. Yet another innovation is to use material that squeezes and slims down swimmers "so the skin doesn't wobble around as they go through the water," Sharp said.

Pieces of fabric were put through wind-tunnel tests to check for drag. Programmers used computational fluid dynamics to model the suits' aerodynamic qualities, as if they were trying to figure out how a brand-new jet will fly. Then, swimmers put the designs to real-world tests in tanks and pools.

The results at the Beijing Olympics were jaw-dropping: Twenty-three world records were broken by the swimmers who wore LZR Racer suits, compared with only two that were broken by the swimmers who didn't. Speedo said 89 percent of all the medals in swimming (including 94 percent of the gold medals) were won by LZR Racer swimmers.
First came the complaints. Then came the escalation: Italian swimsuit makers Arena and Jaked both came out with suits that one-upped the Speedo by using pure polyurethane. "It was relatively obvious to some companies to say, 'Well, let's just make the whole suit out of this stuff,'" Sharp said.
World records once again started dropping like cannonballs off the high-dive. And that only deepened suspicions that pockets of air were somehow being trapped between the polyurethane and the swimmers' skin. If that were the case, the added buoyancy would give those swimmers an unfair advantage.
That's just the kind of issue scientists might be able to settle, but Sharp said he's not aware of any data on the buoyancy question. "This has only been around since about June, so there hasn't been any time for studies to be done," he told me.
He's pretty sure, however, that buoyancy wasn't as much of an issue with the Speedo suits. "We didn't make the whole suit out of polyurethane, we just used patches in a sense," he said. "Some of the new suits ... are completely impermeable to water."
Last week, the governing body for international swimming, known as FINA, decided to ban full-body suits and set stricter standards for their composition. Polyurethane is out. The suits will have to be made exclusively from textiles.
There's another catch, however: FINA's new rules won't go into effect until as late as next spring, which implies that the super-slick, Speedo-beating suits will continue to be worn and records will continue to be broken.

On Tuesday, the situation came to a head when Michael Phelps (wearing a Speedo) came in second to Germany's Paul Biedermann (wearing an Arena X-Glide). The unexpected defeat led Phelps' coach to declare that the world's best-known swimmer probably won't swim in international competitions until the rules change.

"It has to be implemented immediately," coach Bob Bowman said of the polyurethane ban. "The sport is in shambles right now, and they better do something or they're going to lose their guy who fills these seats."
Sharp agreed that the next few months could get rocky. "It's going to be a free-for-all until then," he told me. But then what? Will it be 1999 all over again?
Sharp is certain that the swimwear manufacturers won't just dust off their old designs. "I know they're thinking and talking, and maybe hypothetically designing as we speak," he said.
Speedo has said developing the LZR Racer suit cost several million dollars, and there's no reason to think that kind of spending will stop just because the development effort has to go in a new direction. There's also no reason to think that the $550 price tag for an Olympic-ready swimsuit will be trimmed back as much as the bodysuit itself. You can bet that the shorter swimsuits dreamed up for the London Olympics in 2012 will be touted as the latest and the greatest, as well as street-legal.
The gears inside Sharp's head are already turning.
"I don't think we've exhausted all the possibilities in thread-based materials," he said. "They can still work more on fit, making sure something isn't scooping water and acting as a parachute as they go through the water. But all these things will be within limits, and I think that's progress."
FINA officials will likely be working along with swimsuit manufacturers to make sure the revised rules leave room for new high-tech twists.
"They don't want to stifle innovation completely, but at the same time they don't want to have equipment that enhances performance beyond what the swimmer's natural ability is," Sharp said. "We maybe won't 'enhance' their performance, but we can impair it less."
Then Sharp lets loose with that chuckle again. "You might call that spin doctoring," he said.

No ban, no Phelps

ROME - FINALLY, the resentment that has been simmering in swimming's World Championships has reached boiling point. No bodysuit ban, no Michael Phelps.
His coach Bob Bowman did not mince words after his amphibious freak of nature lost to relative unknown Paul Biedermann, who was wearing the Arena X-Glide body suit, in the 200m freestyle Tuesday.
Bowman said: 'I'm done with this. The sport is in shambles and Fina better do something or they're going to lose their guy (Phelps) who fills these seats.
'That would be my recommendation to him, to not swim internationally.' Phelps added: 'Bob chooses where I swim.'
Fina will ban the high-tech swimsuits. But only from next year, and even then no sooner than May. Until then, records will fall like rain and the debate will rage - was it the man or the suit that won?
Phelps' world-record time was smashed by 0.96sec by Biedermann, who finished in 1min 42sec. In Beijing, the German ended fifth in 1:46.00.
'We've lost all the history of the sport,' Bowman said. 'Does a 10-year-old boy want to break Biedermann's record? Is that going to make him join swimming?
'It took Michael from 2003 to 2008 to go from 1:46 to 1:42.9 and this guy's done it in 11 months. That's an amazing training programme.'
The new generation suits work on the same principles as aerodynamics. Just like reducing drag helps planes fly faster, reducing body drag helps humans swim faster. Studies show that skin friction amounts to almost one-third of the total force restraining a swimmer in the water. Companies such as Arena have spent enormous sums researching which fabrics and weaves drag the least.
The X-Glide is a 100 per cent polyurethane body glove, so hard to slip on that the wearer needs plastics bags on his or her feet and their hands just to slide it on. It is so skintight it actually traps air, which also makes a swimmer buoyant. The LZR is a technological artifact compared to today's fully rubberised suits. And thus a Biedermann can shoot past a 14-time gold medallist such as Phelps.

Rip up records: Swimming is a shambles right now, says Foster

Mark Foster, whose international swimming career spanned 20 years, has called for the blizzard of world records in hi-tech swimsuits to be struck from the record books.
'The records have to go back to the end of 2007,' he said. 'It used to be big news every time somebody broke a world record, now every time somebody steps into a pool they break one. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that it's detrimental to the sport.'
Foster, who carried the flag for the British team at the Beijing Games last year, believes that the Speedo LZR Racer, the suit which kicked off the world-record spree in February 2008, has been worth about half a second over 50 metres, and the allpolyurethane suits - made by Jaked, Arena and adidas - that followed are worth as much again.
'That's an overall drop of almost five per cent, which is ridiculous,' added Foster. 'Before the suits, you would train all year to improve by a couple of hundredths of a second.'
He is convinced that Britain's Rebecca Adlington and American Michael Phelps have lost races they should have won here at the World Championships in Rome by sticking to the now-outdated Speedo suit.
'The 200m freestyle was a race that the best swimmer didn't win,' added Foster.
Germany's Paul Biedermann, who beat Phelps in that race, is one of the swimmers who has come under the most scrutiny here, having made massive improvements to his times and taken not only Phelps's world record in the 200m freestyle but that of Ian Thorpe in the 400m freestyle.
Biedermann has accepted it would be a good thing if the governing body, FINA, put some sort of indicator in the record books. 'I don't have a problem with having my world records being marked,' he said. For Foster, though, that would not be enough and he is fiercely critical of the governing body for letting things get out of hand.
'I don't understand how they didn't see this coming,' he added. Phelps's coach Bob Bowman was also pointing the finger at FINA when, on Tuesday, he threatened to pull Phelps out of international events until the suits issue was settled. 'I'm done with this,' said Bowman.

'The sport is in a shambles right now and they'd better do something or they're going to lose their guy who fills these seats. We've lost all 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? I would be perfectly happy if we adjust all the records and went back to 2007.'
Janet Evans, whose 800m freestyle record was broken by Rebecca Adlington in Beijing, believes the situation has become farcical. 'I go online in the morning and I laugh. It's so out of control,' she said.
So complete has been the swimsuit revolution that only one mark has survived from the pre-suit era, the Australian Grant Hackett's 1500m freestyle record set in 2001 - and that could go on Sunday.

FINA announce ban on bodysuits from 2010

The threat of a boycott by Michael Phelps, winner of eight Olympic gold medals, has persuaded FINA, the International federation to make a clean cut on suits: from January 1, 2010, the bodysuit will be banned and all suits must be made of textiles. Gone too will be the polyurethane and other non-textile fabrics that have helped to push time standards in the race pool through a timewarp in the past year.
On Tuesday this week, the ruling FINA executive announced that it would honour the wishes of the ruling Congress and the 168 nations that voted for a return to textile suits and a cut back in profile in 2010. However, executive director Cornel Marculescu said that a deadline of January 1 next year was unrealistic because of commercial pressures on suit makers.
The start of the new era would be "April or May at the latest", he said, because suit companies needed time to sell stock and to adapt production lines. Time ran out for FINA and suit makers later that same day, however, when Phelps lost the 200m freestyle title and world record to German Paul Biedermann and an arena X-Glide suit that the champion credited with "two seconds" of his four second improvement on the clock this year.
Bob Bowman, coach to Phelps in Baltimore, called on FINA not to delay enforcement of new suits rules beyond January 1, 2010, saying: "They 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." Phelps said simply that he would follow his coaches' instructions. 

FINA responded this afternoon by agreeing that the damage being caused to the sport in a week in which 29 world records have fallen, with more to come over the next three days, had to be brought to a swift end. Newly elected president of FINA, Julio Maglione, of Uruguay, said that the theme of his time in the top office would be "integrity". As such, swimming would be given back to swimmers on January 1.
Denis Pursley, head coach to Britain and an American who has long been opposed to the use of high-tech suits, told The Times: "It is fantastic that FINA has finally done the right thing. The continual changes on the suits issue in the past months has been terrible for swimmers and coaches alike. We have seen kids lining up for two hours in oppressive heat hear at these championships just to get their hands on a suit that will make them competitive."
The coach noted that the suits cost £350 or more each and that "they often rip or lose their effect after several wears". He said that £1,000 a meet was "just too expensive for parents and kids ... a ludicrous expense."
The threat of action against FINA was backed by Biedermann, the German who not only felled Phelps this week but erased the 400m freestyle world record of Australian Ian Thorpe. On the boycott threat, Biedermann, who also wants a return to textile shorts, said: "When Michael Phelps is really doing that, FINA should react. When the best swimmer in the world says that, that's amazing. It's really great."
Suit wars began with the launch of the Speedo LZR Racer in February 2010. Half of the Nasa-designed apparel, with bonded seams, was made of polyurethane panels that reduce drag in water and help swimmers to glide like never before. Rival suit makers cried foul. They had understood that no such equipment would ever be allowed because of a rule stating that "no device may aid speed, buoyancy and endurance."
Complaints fell on deaf ears at FINA and in 2008 108 world records fell, most of them to swimmers wearing the LZR. That suit also accounted for more than 80 per cent of all medals won at the Olympic Games in Beijing, including the eight won by Phelps and the two won by Britain's Rebecca Adlington. Since the turn of the year, more than 20 rival suit makers have swamped the race pool with 100 per cent polyurethane suits and wetsuit-lookalikes that trap air and help to reduce fatigue through compression.
"We've lost the history of the sport," said Bowman. "Does a 10-year-old boy in Baltimore want to break Paul Biedermann's record? Is that going to make him join swimming?" He called on all world records in 2008 and 2009, including 10 set by Phelps, to be marked as "artificially aided".
Bowman said: "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. 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."

FINA to ban record-breaking bodysuits Jan. 1

ROME — No need to worry about a Michael Phelps boycott.
Swimming's governing body will ban record-breaking bodysuits beginning Jan. 1, a move that comes partly in response to a threat from Phelps' coach to pull his swimmer from competition until the suits are outlawed.
"It's going to be cool come Jan. 1 to be able to have all of us pretty much wearing the same suit," Phelps said Friday after swimming the leadoff leg as the Americans broke the world record in the 800 freestyle relay. "All of this is going to be finished and then we're going to be able to talk about swimming again, not suits."
Earlier this week, FINA announced a ban but said it might not come into effect until April or May.
"Now, without a doubt, the rules are applying Jan. 1, 2010," FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu said Friday. "The manufacturers are ready and can begin (suit) submissions Nov. 1 or before."
The comments from Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, came immediately after the swimmer was upset by unheralded Paul Biedermann of Germany in the 200-meter freestyle Tuesday. Biedermann wore a 100 percent polyurethane Arena suit, while Phelps stuck with last year's Speedo LZR Racer, which is less than half polyurethane. This year suits from Italian manufacturers Arena and Jaked are considered faster.
Last year, Phelps and others wearing the LZR profited from its increased speed. Under the new rules, it, as well as the Arena and Jaked suits will be banned. Men will be restricted to suits that extend from the waist to the top of the knees; women's suits cannot go past the shoulders or beyond the knees.
"I'm just thrilled that they did it, because it's the right thing to do," Bowman said. "We know they want to do the right thing for the sport, they just need to do it, so I'm glad to hear it and so is Michael.
"We'll probably keep our competition schedule. There will be some little questions about what suit is he going to wear until the end of the year, but they're minor. In training I don't care."
FINA plans to issue new suit guidelines to manufacturers by Sept. 30 and thought about delaying implementation for a few months to give the companies enough time to produce new suits.
With two days still to go, 35 world records have been set at these world championships, five more than at the last edition two years ago in Melbourne, Australia.
FINA also announced a rule requiring suits to be approved one year before Olympics or world championships, and available commercially six months in advance.
A scientific commission with materials experts from each continent will approve swimsuits and monitor developments in technology, FINA said.
USA Swimming is considering installing the new suit rules for domestic competition before the end of the year. Polyurethane bodysuits will be banned for a Duel in the Pool competition in Manchester, England, in December, with the United States facing an all-star team from France, Russia and Britain.
"We met after prelims this morning and agreed to adopt the rules for that meet," USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus said. "Whether or not USA Swimming adopts those rules any sooner is something we'll talk about when we get home."