Coaches pleased with decision to ban high-tech suits

As an "Olympic sport," swimming tends to live for a jolt every four years, especially in the U.S., from where many top swimmers hail.

By that standard, 2009 has been anything but a normal non-Olympic Games year. First, this was a year in which the World Championships took place, and that meant Michael Phelps was in the water again. Everyone, it seems, loves to talk about Michael Phelps.

And then there were the suits. Swimsuit manufacturers engaged in a summer-long game of "anything you can do, I can do better." Where swimsuits were concerned, that meant more latex, more plastic and less friction with the water.

It also meant more expense for those buying the suits, as parents got caught in the aquatic apparel race.

Then came the World Championships in Rome and records fell like soggy dominoes, 43 in all. It became too much for FINA, the world swimming body, which put an end to the high-tech suits.

As quickly as FINA made its decision, the national high school federation also banned the suits, and the IHSA made the ban complete. For this season, swimmers must wear suits that are made of some woven textile material and which are 100 percent permeable to water and air.

You have to look very hard to find coaches who disagree with the various federations' moves.

"If it was my choice I don't know if I'd have gone as far back as they did," Rosary girls swimming coach Bill Schalz said. "I think it's good, though, that to get the latex and plastic out of the suits. We're heading into a direction again to where what you wear is more is more important than what you do to get to a meet, and that's always been the case in swimming until we had these suits."

FINA's ban takes effect in January, 2010. But as the high school boys season would be partially-over by then, the IHSA needed to make a move earlier than that. By enacting the ban immediately, the high tech suits are eliminated from competition throughout the 2009-2010 season.

"We're always a year behind," West Aurora coach Joe Neukirch said. "The change in the back-to-breast turn in the IM, the backstroke start change and the dolphin kick off the wall in the breaststroke pullout, they're always a year behind. It's nice to see them take decisive action."

Once the IHSA decided to ban the suits, it had one more decision to make - what to do with the state qualifying standards, the "cuts" which swimmers must achieve in order to qualify for the state meet. In recent years, state cuts have moved progressively lower to keep pace with the speeds that swimmers were achieving. And with last year's meet being one of the fastest in state history, the cuts were destined to fall again.

But the IHSA decided to leave at their 2008 levels.

The high tech suits not only were made of Space Age materials - NASA helped design the Speedo LZR which Phelps wore to win 8 gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Games. These suits were also very form-fitting, even form-changing because they were so tight.

"Those suits took a body type and changed it and made it more aerodynamic in the water," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "Now, it is again about athletes who are the fittest and who nutritionally take care of their body. We're going back to what it should be. We're going back to 'pure' and it's awesome."

At the high school level, the race to get the new suits hit first at last year's girls state meet, which ended on Aug. 24, just as high school preseason practices began. The suits became available to the public during the season and there was a scramble to get teams into the suits by the Nov. 21-22 state meet.

"Last year at the girls state meet, we could not get the suit," Rooney said. "Angie (Chokran) was in the suit and the suit ripped on her. They did not have a good batch of suits and our girls team wasn't in them last year. To a degree, I don't think all coaches and those following the sport understood what was going on with the suits until afterward. The truly elite athletes at the high school level knew. And those girls knew to put two of them on. Some had three of them on."

Such an expense was beyond the means of some athletes' parents. But there was also a justification issue - if a swimmer had only a marginal chance to get past the IHSA sectional meet, should a coach advocate for a $500 expenditure?

"For us, it's not a situation where you can tell the girls 'hey, you've got to buy the suit,'" Neukirch said. "We had individuals like Jackie Iglesias who had one, and had a senior last year who purchased one with her own money. That's tough for families, some of whom are struggling these days to put food on the table. And then we ask them to spend $300, $400, $500 for a suit. That's ridiculous. But to compete, for some of these girls, is very important."

Rooney guessed that parents of club swimmers from the two St. Charles schools, Marmion and Rosary probably spent around $20,000 on swimsuits this summer. Where suits in the old days would last a season if not longer, the shelf life of the recently-banned suits could often be counted on one hand. And he added that in advocating for a swimmer to buy a certain suit, coaches became sales reps for one company or another.

"Parents were driving this summer from one club meet and going to return a Speedo suit to get a (Tyr Tracer) Rise," Rooney said. "Then they'd go and return that and get a Blue-70. That's three suits, sometimes in a matter of four weeks in the summer, and that's about $900."

Given the fact that a suit could only be worn a handful of times, and that swimmers only wore those suits for the biggest meets, there was a constant trade in those suits once the state meet ended - assuming the suit lasted that long.

You're spending $500 on a suit that you can only wear once or twice," Schalz said. "They tear really easily. Kids had to be careful pulling it on - and they were really tight - that they didn't put their nail through the suit and tear the suit. Then you've got a $500 suit with a hole in it that you can't return or pass on to someone else."

As every coach mentioned, swimming has always carried a reputation for being one of the more affordable sports when it comes to equipment needed. The high-tech suits changed that playing field.

"We were going to put ourselves in a position where we drove people - and then ourselves - out of the sport financially," Schalz said. "I mean my daughter, who plays college softball, has a $300 bat. But it does at least last her the entire season. We were seeing age-group level parents spending $400 and $500 on suits for their kids - and they put the ban in earlier for the younger kids. That was exactly the right move."

While the clock has been turned back somewhat with regard to suit technology, it hasn't been moved back all that far. Male swimmers can wear suits that go from the waist to the knees. Female swimmers can wear suits that go from the knees to the shoulders, but which do not cover those shoulders with anything that would resemble a sleeve. None of the suits are allowed to have a zipper. So there won't be a return to the very small briefs worn by men in the 70s and 80s or the women's suits that were cut high on the thigh and worn very tightly.

And the "sharkskin" technology which channels water past the suit is also still allowed. But swimmers will no longer shine on deck as the pool lighting hits their plasticized swimwear.