{"id":16209,"date":"2009-12-23T06:37:26","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T11:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.bates.edu\/?p=16209"},"modified":"2017-02-22T17:11:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T22:11:47","slug":"following-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2009\/12\/23\/following-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Following Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of an NCAA ban on on high-tech swimsuits, the focus is again on the swimmers, not on what they wear<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Edgar Allen Beem
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Katelyn<\/a><\/p>\n

To hear swimmers and coaches tell it, near-chaos reigned in the locker rooms last February at the 2009 NESCAC Women\u2019s Swimming and Diving Championships.<\/p>\n

Competitors struggled for up to an hour just to get into their tight new synthetic swimsuits for the first time. Swimmers freaked out as the sleek suits tore. Clear nail polish \u2014 to mend rips \u2014 became a marketable commodity. Coaches who hadn\u2019t outfitted their athletes in the latest high-tech swimsuits made frantic last-minute calls to arrange to buy or borrow some.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe suits were a distraction, no way around it,\u201d says Peter Casares, head coach of Bates swimming and diving<\/a>. \u201cAthletes were more concerned with what suit they were wearing than with racing or swimming.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2008 and 2009, the high-tech, next-generation swimsuits, bearing names such as LZR Racer and Blueseventy, swept through competitive swimming from the Olympics down to the Division III collegiate ranks, leaving in their wake 130 new world records and more cries of foul.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil the ban, it was all about the suit,\u201d says Reingold. “It just took away from your hard work all year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics compared the suits to performance-enhancing drugs, and by September the sport\u2019s various governing bodies had banned the slippery, buoyant, non-permeable swimsuits made of polyurethane and Lycra. Bans by USA Swimming and the NCAA are now in effect, and the international ban by F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Natacion goes into force in January.<\/p>\n

Bates co-captain Sarah Reingold \u201910 applauds the actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil the ban, it was all about the suit,\u201d says Reingold, a freestyle swimmer from Oakland, Calif. \u201cIt just took away from your hard work all year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bates was the first NESCAC team to wear the new suits (Blueseventys) in competition, at the team\u2019s final meet of the year on Feb. 7, 2009. \u201cI think many Division III coaches weren\u2019t sure the suit would become a reality at our level,\u201d Casares says, but swimmers eagerly embraced the new technology. \u201cCollege kids want to go fast, and when I posed the question to them \u2014 $300 for a suit worn for one weekend, and maybe not next year \u2014 well, they wanted one without hesitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suits debuted in full force at the 2009 NESCAC Championships. Some teams had all their swimmers in LZR Racers or Blueseventys, at a cost of up to $400 per suit. Most teams had a few next-gen suits. Bates had six for women and six for men. The results, says Casares, were inconclusive. \u201cThe same people won events who had won the previous year,\u201d he says, \u201cbut the majority wore next-gen suits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Co-captain Katelyn Drake \u201910 of Hudson, Ohio, Bates\u2019 All-American backstroker, tried both the LZR Racer and the Blueseventy, qualifying for the NCAA Division III Championships in the latter. She noticed a difference immediately. \u201cYou jump in the water and go forever, three feet farther than you\u2019ve ever gone before,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The suit was fast in the water but slow to put on. Drake spent 59 minutes putting the Blueseventy on the first time, wearing plastic bags on her feet so her toenails would not tear the membrane-like fabric and working the suit up her body inch by inch with her fingertips.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked wearing it because I dropped a lot of time,\u201d says Drake, who lowered her 100-meter backstroke time by 1.3 seconds while wearing the Blueseventy. \u201cIf I wanted to go to nationals, I needed a suit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s teammate Sarah Reingold, on the other hand, wore a Blueseventy only once and didn\u2019t care for it. \u201cTurns were a lot faster, flips were a lot faster, and you float more,\u201d says Reingold. \u201cBut it was weird not having the feeling of the water on my legs, and I felt I was getting water in my suit.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the NESCAC Championships, Reingold wore the Blueseventy for the morning prelims of the 500-meter freestyle but decided not to wear it for the evening finals. \u201cI went the same time in both races,\u201d Reingold reports.<\/p>\n

The new FINA and NCAA rules stipulate that swimsuits must be made of woven textiles that are 100 percent permeable to air and water. They can\u2019t be more than .8 millimeters thick or have a buoyancy effect of more than .5 newtons. And though full-body suits for men and women came onto the scene nearly a decade ago, the new rules allow men\u2019s suits to cover only from the waist to the kneecaps, and women\u2019s suits from the shoulders to the kneecaps.<\/p>\n

Casares is now in the \u201cterribly awkward\u201d position of having to ask high school recruits if they wore a next-gen suit last year.<\/p>\n

During the 2008\u201309 swim season, male and female Bates swimmers broke an astounding 24 College records. Some fell before the suit, some after, so the real story from Casares\u2019 perspective was the influx of talented first-year swimmers coupled with senior leadership. \u201cThe majority of my athletes did not wear the suit, and many did not like the suit when all was said and done,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Though now banned, the suit still affects Casares\u2019 program because he\u2019s now in the \u201cterribly awkward\u201d position of having to ask high school recruits if they wore a next-gen suit last year. He hates what the question implies: that a swimmer\u2019s improved times aren\u2019t the result of hard work or changes in technique. \u201cIt\u2019s very touchy, to say the least,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Drake, an economics and sociology double major, says she has mixed emotions about the swimsuit ban. \u201cThe suits are pretty cool, but at least I won\u2019t have to shell out $400 just to be competitive.\u201d She admits to being a bit anxious about the upcoming 2009\u201310 season, recalling Casares\u2019 caution to his swimmers last year: \u201cIf you do wear the suit and go fast, you may never go that fast again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reingold is less worried. A psychology major, she thinks a lot of the benefits of high-tech suits were purely mental. That is, if you think the LZR Racer will make you swim faster, it will. \u201cPush that out of your head,\u201d Reingold urges her Bobcat teammates. \u201cDon\u2019t put limitations on yourself. You never know how fast you can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Casares makes a distinction between swimming faster and swimming more competitively. \u201cBates swimmers are extremely fit, well-trained, and prepared. Those are the qualities that win races,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd ultimately, college swimming is scored based on place, not on time. We\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he knows that the suits \u201cdid change record boards across the nation for what may be a long time. We\u2019ll see this year just how fast people go. I\u2019m both excited and nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of an NCAA ban on high-tech swimsuits, the focus is again on the swimmers, not on what they wear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[24,224],"tags":[10856],"class_list":["post-16209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-society-culture","tag-bates-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88222,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16209\/revisions\/88222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}