The Bodysuit Issue. 
Comment.
Is FINA properly applying its rules?

Here follow the new FINA RULES covering the use of swimwear in competitive swimming.

G.R 6.4 Before any swimsuit of new design, construction or material is used in competition, the manufacturer of such swimsuit must submit the swimsuits to FINA and obtain approval of FINA.

G.R 6.5 The manufacturer must assure FINA that the approved new swimsuit will be available-/or all competitors.

Because delegates from 114 FINA nations at the Sydney Congress on 14 September 2000, to their lasting shame, on the recommendation of the Bureau upheld without discussion that swimsuits should not be considered under the device rule SW 10.7 but under the costume rule GR 6 it meant that FINA has tacitly confirmed there is no bar to the wearing costumes which may be performance-enhancing equipment. This includes high tech fabrics in any configuration providing there is FINA approval.

The fabrics, which have been claimed by most manufacturers to go beyond (legitimately) reducing the torso suit to water resistance to a minimum, are clearly designed and claimed to lower the natural skin/water resistance and thus aid performance. The manufacturers are producing a variety of suits, including the much publicised bodysuits which FINA has permitted to cover virtually the whole body, from neck to wrists and to ankles.

IS FINA REGULARLY PRESENTING A LIST OF SWIMSUITS WHICH ARE APPROVED FOR COMPETITION? SUCH A LIST DOES NOT APPEAR ON ITS WEB SITE.

IS ANY APPROVAL PROCEDURE BEING CARRIED OUT AND IF SO WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA BEING USED BY FINA ?

WILL THE NEW FINA COSTUME RULES UNDER GR 6.0 BE APPLIED AT THE WORLD CUP MEETS INCLUDING, MELBOURNE IN DECEMBER?

Do the new suits help? The "jury" is still out on this
However there is increasing disillusionment with some manufacturer's specific and implied original claims and swimmers are opting for less body cover. Despite swimmer awareness of restricted shoulder movement and the obvious fact that lowering arm/water resistance to the propelling action of the arm movements could not aid performance, a handful of top swimmers have still opted to race, very likely to their detriment, with covered arms and legs covered below the knees. There is a suggestion that this is due to generous contractual considerations.

With the male competitors there has been of late, and even at the Sydney Olympic Games, a very obvious preference swing towards waist (for males) to ankles, and waist to knees ("jammer") suits which still retail for significantly greater cost than the traditional "brief' suits to the tops of the thighs with standard nylon or lycra material.

It is possible that performance is aided because of the flotation properties of the high-tech fabrics around the buttocks and thighs at least until the material becomes thoroughly wetted after 50 or 100 metres into the swim.

Despite increased costs, prohibitive to many, and the powerful philosophical arguments that there is no place in the sport of swimming for some competitors gaining an advantage with their selection of equipment, such objections have fallen on deaf ears with commercially orientated FINA Executives, and with its apparently so readily compliant federations.

The intriguing question now is how the FINA Bureau will act to fairly implement

its two new impossibly loose and impractical rules GR 6.4 and G.R 6.5 which state that all new suits must be "approved" by FINA (with no Congress - agreed criteria for approval laid down!) AND that there must be assurance from the manufacturers that approved new swimsuits will be available (simultaneously ?) for all competitors.

With the growing realisation of "grass roots" swimming people where this unbridled commercialism is leading the sport is it possible that growing pressure from the federations will prevail on FINA to take a step backwards from the view that performance-aiding characteristics of swimwear should be disregarded, being considered as representing "progress", and ignored.

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/coachsci/swimming/bodysuit/table.htm