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==Article: “The Big Deal About Swim Suits”==
 
==Article: “The Big Deal About Swim Suits”==
: For Swim Parents ===
+
: For Swim Parents
 
: by [[John Leonard]], Executive Director, [[American Swimming Coaches Association]]. From August 2009.
 
: by [[John Leonard]], Executive Director, [[American Swimming Coaches Association]]. From August 2009.
 
: Permission to reprint was granted.
 
: Permission to reprint was granted.

Revision as of 18:09, 24 February 2015

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Article: “The Big Deal About Swim Suits”

For Swim Parents
by John Leonard, Executive Director, American Swimming Coaches Association. From August 2009.
Permission to reprint was granted.


Over the past 18 months, the swimming world has been a frenzy of controversy over the emergence of technology in swimsuits. At the recent World Championships in Rome, the constant and overwhelming refrain about suits, echoed the volume and intensity of the last time we were in Rome for a World Championships, when the topic was doping....drugs distorting our sport...in 1994. Fifteen years later, the emotional topic was the new high tech suits that have swept through the sport from the World Championship level down to the local park district championships in the summer league. The parallels were impossible to miss.

FINA (the international governing body of swimming), in an unprecedented move at its Congress in Rome, banned the use of all “non-textile” materials from suits beginning in 2010, and limited the coverage of the body to “knees to navel for men” and “knees to shoulder straps” for women. 168 nations voted in favor of the restrictions, against a mere 6 in opposition (who apparently did not understand the word “textile”.) This in the face of strong opposition to the move by the sitting President and Executive Director of the FINA organization. Amazing and never seen before. The USA delegation initiated the restrictions and led the opposition. Why such a strong reaction in opposition to the existing plastic and rubber suits?

A parent new to the sport, from a middle class background, might well say “hey, why not? Technology marches on! Equipment gets better. Why not let my son/daughter wear one of the fancy new suits and swim faster?”
Second, the suit does not affect everyone the same. The thin, fit swimmer will benefit marginally by it. The overweight swimmer will swim like a young seal in it. Spending the same $500 on two children will yield radically different results. Not a fair competition at all. Is that what anyone wants?

Third, and it seems unnecessary to say this, but if you just buy 3 suits a year, that’s $1500 or MORE. (Today, purchasing one of the great European suits online from the US will cost you $900...with no guarantee of fit, durability or return-ability, and about 30% of them RIP on the first attempt to put them on...no refund, folks.) Do we really want age group and high school swimmers to have to spend that kind of money to BUY success rather than work for it? It doesn’t make our sport a middle class sport, it makes it a sport for wealthy families.

Are you pooh-poohing that? Wait till your son or daughter gets beat the first time by someone whose mommie or daddie could afford a more expensive piece of plastic and rubber than you can. The bitter taste in your mouth is not fun. Not much in the way of “sport” there.

So, in answer to the local official who asked, “Why are “they” [FINA officials] wasting time with worrying about THAT? Don’t they have better things to do?”