Nuoto Roma

This neat photo by the AP of Mark Gangloff, a Munroe Falls native and graduate of Akron Firestone High who finished 11th in the semifinals of the 100-meter breaststroke at the swimming world championships Sunday in Rome. His family must be way proud. The swimming takes place all week with trials televised live 8:30AM GMT and finals from 5:30PM. Eitan and I watch together in the mornings and today Michael Phelps qualifies second in the 200 meter fly in 1:54 and change - his world record is 1:52.09 (which he swam without a rubber suit). To put this in perspective, when I was competitive it was a Big Deal to be under 2-minutes in the 200 meter fly and the great Michael "The Albatross" Gross never cracked 1:56, which this morning was needed to qualify for the consolation finals. One difference from now and then is the racing suit, which aids performance. After only three days in Roma, for instance, 11 World Records set including the women's 100 and 400 meter freestyle (first women, Federico Pelligrini, under 4-minutes), 100 breast, 100 butterfly, 200 I.M., and 4X100 freestyle relay and the men's 400 freestyle and 100 breast.

And what of the suit? The LZR Razer, which is sooo yesterday, uses ultrasonically bonded seams that fit a swimmer like a true second skin, as opposed to the stitched-up suits of the past. With low-drag panels embedded within the fabric, the suit designed in conjunction with NASA scientists to find the best performing fabric. The suit's pressure pulls in body mass, making the user more streamline. This has a particularly powerful effect with larger, muscled athletes like Dara Torres, who maintain a consistent exertion yet propelled further thanks to less water resistance. The LZR and similar suits also raise a swimmer's buoyancy levels, which also play an important part in speed. Ian Thorpe introduced a unique and powerful swimming style which took advantage of the saran wrap. Some of the women wear two of them at same time. These suits speed pace by 3-4%.

So swimming's governing body FINA reacts, finally, banning the seal skins from January 2010 making Rome the last competition where they are in use. This presents its own problems like what to do with the great majority of the recent records aided by technology? Do we ignore them or an astrix? Eventually things will equal out but it may take years for the last two to be surpassed. It bothers me that my times, which I worked hard for and am proud of, cannot be compared to what I see on television. It's like juice in baseball - it robs today's participant of their legacy and us old timers of our bragging rights.

"We've lost all the history of the sport. Does a 10-year-old boy in Baltimore want to break Paul Biedermann's record? Is that going to make him join swimming?"
--Bob Bowman, coach of Michael Phelps