Drowning in swimsuit controversy

What’s with all the fuss about the new swimming costumes? From ‘technical doping’ to suggestions of denying the swimmers their records, the media has been full of spluttering comment about a sport they usually largely ignore.

At these most recent world championships, a fantastic 43 new records have been set. This seems similar to the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal 1976 when the scandal was about the East Germans and doping. But it was also the first year that goggles were introduced. Swimmers could actually see where they were going – shock horror – and they wore Lycra for the first time. Twenty-six old world records tumbled.

Was there a scandal about their new developments? No, because the thing is – they still have to swim. And fast. Technology may help improve your techniques, but you still have to do the work yourself. You still have to get in a pool, and train for six hours a day. That’s not exactly easy, suit or no suit.

I simply don’t understand the anguish. So there’s this material that gives the wearers an unfair advantage. How is that different from those compression tops that footballers wear to help with circulation, or the shorts with extra stitching that rugby players use for ease of lifting in line-outs? How is it different from wearing an aero-dynamic cycling helmet in a time-trial?

We used to row in wooden boats, hit balls with wooden tennis racquets and cycle on bikes made from… actually, what did we ride before carbon fibre was invented? Innovation and advancement happens in sport as much as any other field, perhaps even more so because there are marketing opportunities which lead to revenue.

Ay, there’s the rub; some folk would like to think that sport is still amateur; we all play nicely and for honour and glory rather than filthy lucre. Training is cheating, and natural talent wins out every time. Nice thought, but it probably hasn’t happened since the Greeks competed naked (if then) at a variety of curiosities. Or is that the idea?

Do these people who protest (and probably only ever swim in the kidney-shaped pool on their holidays in Fiji – that always struck me as an odd design for a pool while we’re at it as it makes me think of surgical procedures) think we should still be paddling about in knitted bathers that come below the knee? Where should a line be drawn in the sand when it comes to progress?

Now FINA has bowed to the pressure and the suits will be banned in the future. Sure, we all like an excuse to vent some righteous indignation but I can’t help feeling that swimming is the new cycling – considered boring unless there is a scandal. Is it any coincidence that that Tour de France was hardly covered in the mainstream press this year? One doping scandal does not a news story make.

Hopefully this flood of crocodile tears will soon be water under the bridge and we can get back to concentrating on the beauty of the sport – for those that ever actually cared about it in the first place.

Besides, it has been ever thus; the man (or woman) in the best suit gets the best results.