Above are screen shots from TYR, Speedo and the Nike websites. Welcome to 2010, these are our swimsuit selections!
Looks like Nike is back in the swimsuit business! I guess Nike smelled blood in the water and has posted this revamped Nike Swim site in response to Speedo's epic FAIL at 2009 Worlds:
Nike Swim [Link]
I suspect Nike has a shot at becoming the number one suit brand since Speedo has apparently loss it's "street-cred" after Jaked and Arena knocked it off it's pedestal!
It took Speedo 40-years to place their brand on that pedestal too.
32 comments:
Hey Tony:
They have turned swimming suits back to a fashion show.
Wonder if the "Jungle Print" will make an appearance?
Hope your old enough to remember that!
It's going to look so weird. I don't think I've ever seen a meet where nearly everyone wasn't in a speedsuit. I mentioned this to a friend and they said that it would be better because there would be more flesh on show (!)
I really like your blog and have read lots of it.
Bowling shirt prints for men, Hawaiian moo moo dress prints for women.
When 2011 arrives, the manufacturers are going to lay siege to the FINA offices with trebuchets, and torches
Thank you fan, I am very flattered. I think it will be weird too and I suspect NBC and the IOC will get involved if ratings go down.
The skin is back!!!
As nice guys & gals look in shiny latex, still the skin is king.
In previous post you said:
Selling "Instant talent" is a mirage especially when it comes to swimming, it's snake oil, it's a weight-loss product on a cheesy informercial at 3:00 AM.
'nuff said!
They want skin? I say we show them huh Tony? Based on some recent photos, sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for... you just might get it.
I'm tempted to break out my 26 paper suit from the early 80's. One meet in that, and FINA will be bringing back the full-bodies at least for masters.
Hopefully they'll have the foresight NOT to ban them for us older swimmers.
I loved "Jungle Print" - the orange and brown was my perennial choice for practice. But that was way back in the '60s where it was omnipresent for years. If it ever does make a reappearance I'll be one of the first to buy one.
Tony, the world doesn't revolve around money however much Americans have been indoctrinated that it does. Admittedly the concept of right and wrong has little currency in the States but banning techno doping is the right thing to do to encourage fair competition. I'm really more interested in why you think television ratings will go down more than usual in a post-Olympic year? Do you think the increased attention because of the controversy the past year and a half was sustainable? That world records (192 from Feb/08 to this month's FINA World Championships) could continue at the same pace?
I am sure Disney will see you a Lion King suit! ;-)
I think that ratings will go down because out sport is defined by world records and the amount of medals won by an athlete like Phelps or Spitz.
Now the races will have no significance.
For the next generation or so, name recognition, press coverage, etc. etc., will diminish.
Ricky Brens butt, Flavia Zoccari most awesome butt, will be gone and so will the attention on our sport.
tony you should read this , speedo spinning machine starting :
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090823/SPORTS/908230333
i am not sure the link worked in the 1st post :http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090823/SPORTS/908230333/-1/SPORTS
that was amazing, Maly! How about this comment from the article:
"... Brommers adds: "Speedo has never sought to compromise the integrity of the sport and has never created a buoyant suit. The Speedo LZR Racer suit was deliberately designed with 50 percent exclusive LZR Pulse woven fabric so as to avoid aiding buoyancy in the water. ..."
In other words, it's not our fault we had them banned by way of Mark Schubert, Bob Bowman, Alan Thompson and other Speedo paid endorsers.
i saw the link to this article on swimnetwork.com
when i read it ,i was thinking oh really speedo !!!!
But you do admit this past avalanche of records is only temporary and would eventually subside once "parity" was reached between the swimsuit manufacturers? Many are pushing for all "Speedsuit Era" records to be asterisked and a return to tracking "fabric" records starting from WR dated prior to Feb/08 instead. Wouldn't that achieve the same results? The average viewer would only be told that a new world record had been set. The fact it was done under the new rules and slower than the existing "assisted" WR would carry little relevance to either the ignorant or cognoscenti alike, even if for completely different reasons. A win-win situation right?
If suddenly they said, all speedsuit WRs are erased, I think the public who knows nothing about swimming would care more since they would feel that they witnessed history.
(I guess Thorpes records should be erased too, huh?)
As for win/win - Speedsuits are really fun and I like it that more countries are setting WRs.
However, a governing body called FINA may tell me I can't enjoy swimming on the competitive level the way I want too and I don't like that so I lose I guess..
Not FINA. FINA was the organization which allowed this mess in the first place and was only dragged kicking and screaming into banning speed suits when 168 out of 174 national federations voted to take the suits out. That's called democracy. Take your lumps and smile. ;>)
That was not democracy, that was a mugging! A mugging perpetrated by a republic of NGBs who were appointed and not elected.
You're apparently confusing American political reality with representational democracy as practiced by the rest of the world. In a very short span of time it became very clear the overwhelming majority of elite and age group competitive swimmers, coaches and parents, favor a return to fabric suits. The swimming world as a whole has voted no to the rapacious greed of corporate interests laying waste to swimming in the name of profit.
Okay, I'm getting more than a little carried away here. Why, I feel as giddy as Republicans must have when the Supreme Court selected Bush the Junior to be President in 2000 ... or was it Robert Duvall when he took in the smell of cordite in the morning? But truthfully it's refreshing to be on the "winning" side when the choices are so clearly opposed. I wish it could have been on something important though. :>(
Scott's right, Tony. The only group of competitive swimmers that are almost all in favour of a return to techsuits are US Masters.
The majority of almost every other group - age group & elite - that I'm aware of or have spoken to, wanted the techsuits gone.
As I have read some where in this cavernous void known as the internet, that ratings will go up once the suits are gone amongst the "casual fan"
It is all about gold medals and world records yes, but not by androgenous beings. They all looked the same in Beijing and Rome. I remember quite well as a young lad, watching Summer Sanders win in her "race suit". The casual fan is interested in seeing what all the years of hard work has turned the female/male form into. The days of old suits are more relatable to the casual fan because they could afford a normal suit, which makes the world record breaking feats seem more human.
I agree with Erik. I too think it's the athlete who stars in swimming and to whom the casual spectator identifies with. It's just that they're forced to rely on world records and Olympic gold medals to identify the stars. In my opinion all these world records have muddied the waters so much their reduced to choosing their "heros" by Olympic gold medals alone (for us Masters of course who know something of the sport a "mere" former Olympian garners P.A. announcements and stares at even national meets). Ultimately it is the "Body" which draws attention to swimming - when people talk about perfection most chose the elite swimmer's physique as their ideal form (really, they've done studies on this). Why hide it under an anonymous suit?
I don't agree with you, Scott, but I agree with Erik so I won't be swimming extra 200's this week. ;-)
A very wise man Tony.
i really dislike when everyone says "all the elite athletes do NOT want tech suits!" can people start naming names? and were these people always for old-style suits? or is this a recent development?
i swear- everyone used to be excited with what the suit companies were going to come out with next! i am sad to see REGRESS in suit technolog
Damn straight! Only swimmers I can think of who want skin are speedo swimmers.
There's no doubt the majority of elite swimmers want a return to the stability of the pre-Speedo LZR Racer era. Those not similarly equiped complained bitterly (Speedo promised everybody would have a suit in time for Beijing) but even in the beginning some Speedo clad elite were making negative comments about the suits, anonymously of course because of sponsorship obligations and national team affiliations. As time went on more and more have become more open and vocal about getting rid of the suits. Most, however, have taken the easiest, most politic route by simply making their desires known to their national federations. Tony has it right about Speedo swimmers wanting the ban. What he neglects to mention is the fact the remainder remember when they were in the same position. They know full well sometime soon another suit will come around and they'll be right back in the same dark, despairing place - unable to be competitive, once again.
I have you pegged as an individual with close connections to the swimsuit industry Anonymous . Otherwise what's with this mania about technological progress for nothing other than progress's sake? What have the suits done for swimming other than distort competitiveness and add huge costs? If you want to swim faster introducing fins would be both a lot cheaper and result in faster times. For the life of me I can't understand why the standing rules against devices has not been applied here; after all FINA had to give suits a special exemption from being considered devices a decade ago. A simple reversal of that ruling and - Presto! - no problem.
At LCM, SCY, Masters Nationals tech-sutis are not just the norm but the de facto standard.
At the TYR Swim Meet of Champions all the kids wore tech suits and they loved them. I spoke to some about it and one, who made the A-Final in breaststroke gave me a brief rundown on which ones were the fastest.
To say a majority of people favor a return to the "Flintstone's" epoch of swimming have no more reliability than my own meandering opinion.
Most of the comments I read from elite swimmers - Britta Steffen, Alain Bernard, to name two - seemed to suggest that they did not like the suits. I didn't speak to any elite athlete in person, though.
In my circle, the age group kids liked 'em, their parents hated 'em.
Coaches of elite athletes that I spoke to wished they'd go away because the suits - specifically, picking the "right" suit - became, for some athletes, such a mental travail. The whole suit thing - whether or not you had the fast suit or how you could it - became very distracting.
Age group coaches, the ones that I know, loathed 'em. Absolutely hated them.
Have a couple friends that work for a National Governing Body. Interestingly enough, their big beef was the fact that FINA made such a boondogle of the whole thing. My friends both indicated that they really didn't care tech vs. jammers, they just wanted an even playing field, with clearly defined rules.
Au contraire mon ami. You have to resort to citing personal observations whereas I rely on the actual evidence before us - 168 national federations wanted the suits banned. These federations didn't vote en masse the same way on a whim - it was the consensus view within their constituency. I think Ted sums up the prevailing attitudes very well. Yes, there will be elite athletes who'll be sorry to see the suits go but I'm betting they're also the ones who benefited the most. It will be most interesting to see how the world rankings shake out after a year under the ban.
Your 168 federations is a confederacy of politicians not the actual swimmers themselves.
Ted says kids like the suits, and so dis the kids I interviewed. Imagine if USA Swimming let them vote in a "democratic way"
Ted also said, Tony, that their parents hated them and, if I remember correctly, Tony said that the age groupers should not be allowed to use the suits...
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