Controversy Over High-Tech Swim Suits

Jayne Glanton October 16, 2013

Introduction: In the beginning of the sport competitive swimming, people didnt wear any kind of suit when competing. They found that any clothing worn would slow them down. But as the years went by and people became more conservative with their bodies, they started wearing dresses and full body suits so that nothing could be seen by anyone. They went so far as to put weights into the skirts of women so that they wouldnt float up in the water and reveal anything that wasnt to be seen. When the Olympics started in 1896, new suits and fabrics that made it easier to swim and didnt hinder the swimmer during the race (Deborah Durbin). They were trying to replicate the feeling of swimming naked while keeping the modesty of the swimmers intact. As years went by and technology evolved they kept coming up with new ways to get fabric to replicate the way that human skin repels water. After the suit that was created for the 1992 Olympics, Speedo has made a new suit with new technology for every single Olympics since then (Durbin). Most recently the swimming community has made huge advances in the development of high-tech suits or other wise known as competition suits. These suits are built to smooth over parts of your body that can cause drag and slow you down, cover large portions of your body and repel water. They come in all sorts of styles, from covering ankle to wrist or just knee to shoulders. Some people complained that these suits caused an unfair advantage in the sport. I have swam competitively for twelve year and have worn six different types of racing suits, the Fastskin LZR Racer, the LZR Pro, the Fastskin II Pro, the Fastskin, the Aquablade, and the Nike Performance suit. You may ask why I have so many of these really expensive suits and the answer is that they wear out easily so you can only wear
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them to one maybe two meets. Usually you get a new race suit every season. I would get a new one for every short course season ending meet. In my personal experience, I prefer the Speedo brand suits because they are better fitting and they also have an advantage over every other company by being the one who gets the most research and money to make the best suits. I believe that high tech suits do give somewhat of an advantage to the swimmer but their main purpose. Just like track shoes with spikes give runners instead of just a plain running shoe. I believe the high-tech racing suits do need to have restrictions but they shouldnt be banned for a few tenths of a second difference in time. So my stance is that they should be allowed to be used because they are there to help the sport of swimming become more competitive and harder for the champions to be found, which makes people work harder. Sometimes, mentally the way they make you feel, gives you that extra confidence boost you need to push you through the race. But most of all, you wait all season to get it on and they cost several hundred dollars. The sport maybe rapidly becoming more and more competitive but sometimes things need to be pushed. Literature Review
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Worked Cited Barrow, John D. "Why Ban Full-Body Olympics Swimsuits? A Scientist Explains Polyurethane." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 25 July 2012. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/25/why-ban-full-body-olympicsswimsuits-a-scientist-explains-polyurethane.html "The Effects of Technical Suits on Swimming Performance." LIVESTRONG.COM. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013. http://www.livestrong.com/article/347469-the-effects-of-technical-suits-on-swimmingperformance/ "Michael Phelps, Polyurethane and the High-Tech Swimsuit Controversy | In The Hopper: SPI's Business Blog." Polyurethane and the High-Tech Swimsuit Controversy | In The Hopper: SPI's Business Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2013. http://www.inthehopper.org/industry-news/high-tech-swimsuit-controversy/ "The Science of Sport: Swimsuit Controversy." The Science of Sport: Swimsuit Controversy. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2013. http://www.sportsscientists.com/2008/11/swimsuit-controversy.html & Barlowe, Barrett. "RULES & REGULATIONS OF OLYMPIC SWIMMING."LIVESTRONG.COM. N.p., 21 Oct. 2013. Web. <http://www.livestrong.com/article/530734-rules-regulations-of-olympic-swimming/>. & "Making No Waves." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 11 June 2008. Web. 24 Oct. 2013. <http://www.economist.com/node/11527308>. &

. N.p.. Web. 24 Oct 2013. <http://www.fina.org/H2O/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=273:bl-8swimwear&catid=81:by-laws&Itemid=184>. & Durbin, Deborah. "Getting Wet: Swimwear from Cavemen to the Olympics."Experimentation -. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2013. <http://www.experimentation-online.co.uk/article.php?id=1428>. & &