HFS!!! The suits are back!!!
Yes…all that which was illegal is now legal. Any hope of putting swimming back on the swimmer instead of the suit may be potentially lost forever. FINA, taking a page directly out of the CSCAA book, has decided to reverse the reverse of their swimsuit decision. NOW, you can wear anything you want…but only until 1/1/10. Because then, FINA will get really mad and count to 10 and set new suit and time recognition standards. In the meantime, enjoy the results from Rome…
Craig Lord also once again offers his perspective on the issue…Some highlights…
“…every event at the 13th world championships in Rome will be a sham, each line-up will include swimmers who enjoy greater or lesser benefits from a variety of suits that offer different advantages to different swimmers on different strokes; the world record books will take a another pounding; the world ranking lists will continue to be warped and mangled.”
“The international federation should steel itself for much more of that this summer as the ghost of 1994 returns in different guise to haunt FINA and its failure to grasp the nettle by the hand and rip it out at the roots.”
“In effect what FINA has achieved for this summer through all this expensive testing and retesting and putting folk up at the Lausanne Palace Hotel and supposedly listening to the advice of coaching and swimming representatives and supposedly relying on science is: NIL. While it is right that all suits should be allowed if one level of significant performance-enhancing is allowed in suits (the LZR etc) – the level playing field in the race pool is that there is no level playing field: anything goes – this day is a sad one for swimming and those who govern FINA should be hanging their heads in shame this morning.”
Damn…just when I thought that we were over this shit…its actually only just started.
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FINA reminds me of a bunch of kids who somehow got caught in a terrible lie. Every time they pop out of their tree house to explain the new truth to us, someone points out another giant flaw in their logic and they have to scurry back up their rope ladder and think of better story to tell.
It started off with a little lie about how the suits really don’t improve performance. Then, the records started falling and they had to make up another lie about how only SOME suits help. But by then people had already raced and set records in the original suits (which you will remember used to not help). Then, the new and improved suits came out, and being all shiny, attracted FINA’s attention once again. However, FINA continued to sit in their tree house and wonder how they can NOW say that these suits are ruining the sport when the old suits didn’t. Of course, now the records are falling left and right, and long standing records are being smashed overnight. Oh, so wait; let’s ban those suits that people already swam in! Excellent idea! Bu doing this FINA basically admits that the suits really did make all the difference. Oh, but wait, the companies already invested millions making the suits, people bought them by the thousands and guess what, already competed in them and rewrote the record books, and guess what – those people are mad. Since kids, uh FINA, don’t like people to be mad at them, they call a do-over and to make everyone happy (everyone with money to lobby that is) all that was illegal is now legal again. Not that FINA really made a decision, they have just managed to extend their lie another 6 months. Then they have to explain that even though you had sex with Brooke Shields at summer camp she won’t be coming to visit you at home… oh wait, that was a lie.