Wednesday, December 02, 2009

AP News: Swimmers weigh in the tech suit change!

Athletes like Rebecca Soni, Eric Shanteau give their thoughts on the new suit standards and both are positive about the change.

From AP News:

Eric Shanteau, another U.S. Olympian, said he sees valid points to both sides of the swimsuit issue.

"I think one of the reasons swimming has struggled for popularity outside of Olympic years is people want to see fast swimming year-round, and the suits helped with that," Shanteau said. "At the same time the suits took away some of the finer points of swimming. You maybe didn't have to train as hard or have as fine a technique."

Shanteau said he hasn't even put on one of the new suits yet. But Soni has, and she did notice a difference in Minneapolis last month.

"I still swam pretty well," she said. "For a while, I would assume it's going to be a lot slower. But this is a pretty big meet, and people will be coming in a little more rested. I'm sure people will swim fast but not last-summer fast."

[Link]


The 2009 AT&T Short Course National Championships start tomorrow. The meet will air nationally on NBC, Dec. 12, 2-3 p.m. ET.

It should be boss!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I predict that the times will be every bit as fast as last summer in the new textile suits, as long as the swimmers were allowed to fully rest.

Tony Austin said...

Awesome, I hope so, too.

maly said...

quote of the day by hugues duboscq " going from the suit to the short is like driving a ferrari then a 2 cv "the french answer to the beetle . link to a photo of a 2cv :http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/2934/26citroen2cv.jpg

Anonymous said...

to anonymous above: if that turns out to be true, maybe the fast times were due to drugs and not the suits..

I'm looking forward to seeing what the times will be like without those suits anyway.

Tony Austin said...

Wow, that car looks like something out of comedy from the 1930's :-)

Tony Austin said...

Anonymous 2, I predict that if some countries who rose to prominence with the suits suddenly fall off the map, FINA will take note and be concerend. i.e. Only Australia and America winning medals like it was in 1970's.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 2

Did it ever occur to you that maybe the suits really didn't do anything at all, and after a few records were broken, everyone bought into the marketing hype.

So far this fall, many high school records from last season have been re-broken by the same swimmers in textile suits, and I also predict, after the Division I collegiate season is over, the same result.

Erik said...

" predict that the times will be every bit as fast as last summer in the new textile suits, as long as the swimmers were allowed to fully rest."

Whoever you may be - please please please let's have a wager on this -- any amount of money !