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."