The Psych Sheet

The Starting Blocks

When it comes to the world of competitive swimming, there seems to be few slow weeks. There’s always news happening in some arena of the sport whether it’s involving age groupers, high school swimmers, college competitors, the pros or even my colleagues, the master’s group.

Here’s a quick look at some of this week’s news.

Mature Swimmers Take to the Pool

The 2009 United State Masters Swimming National Short Course Championship kicked off yesterday with the mixed 1000Y Freestyle and mixed 1650Y Freestyle events at the Clovis North High School Aquatic Complex in Fresno, Calif. The annual championship is a chance for master swimmers from around the country to face off.

This year’s Colorado Masters Swimming team is comprised of 51 athletes from various masters programs around the state and is one of the larger teams at the national meet, which has more than 1,500 competitors.  Not too surprising, many are swim parents who devote their fair share of time schlepping their kids to practice and attending age grouper meets so it’s nice to see them take the opportunity to get in there and strut their stuff.

Speaking of strutting, today’s lineup includes the 400Y IM, which I happen to think is one of the most grueling events. Among the competitors, 86-year-old Jae Howell of Walnut Creek Masters in Calif. You go girl!

The Bad Economy Hits the Sport

Late last week, the University of Washington announced it was cutting both its men’s and women’s intercollegiate teams. It’s a shame to hear about any program being cut, but given that the swimmers had no idea and that both programs had met with some recent success – the men’s team took 16th at the NCAA championship meet in March while the women’s team finished 15th – it’s especially tough news. For a local perspective, check out this Seattle Times piece .

Phelps Ban Lifted

Boy how time flies. Michael Phelps has the green light from USA Swimming to once again compete in meets. His three-month suspension from competition following the publishing of a photo in late January of him with a weed pipe in hand, ended on Tuesday. As reported by the Associated Press, the penalty didn’t appear to faze the Olympic superstar who didn’t even know it had ended.

Instead, he’s been focused on getting back in shape according this insightful, feature article in the Washington Post published today that details what was going on with the swimming celebrity post Beijing. 

We’ll see how fit he is next weekend when Phelps and several other Olympians compete at the Charlotte UltraSwim May 14-17 at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center.

Suits Make the Swimmer?

Last summer leading up to and during the Olympics when all that ink was being spent on whether Speedo’s LZR Racer provided an unfair advantage, I could have cared less. To me, the suits were new, exciting and way cool – NASA engineered in the case of the LZR. Who wouldn’t be jazzed?

As I sat enthralled in front of my TV watching record-breaking swim after record-breaking swim in Beijing, I conceded the new tech suits might have made a difference, but it was still the swimmer who had to lay down the time. Right?

And as long as everyone had an opportunity to wear them, no foul there. Of course, that’s where the initial rub came in. Athletes sponsored by companies other than Speedo had a big choice to make – potentially jeopardize their sponsorships or risk getting touched out at the wall.

Still, this was the Olympics, the pinnacle of international competition and a stage for cutting edge technology.

Fast forward a few months and 100 world-record breaking swims later. That’s no typo. More than 100 world records have been set in the last year including 10 in December at the short course championships in Europe.

Enough to grab the full attention of FINA, the international governing organization for swimming, which last week  met with more than a dozen swimsuit manufacturers to discuss new design rules.

Trickle-Down Effect

So what does this all have to do with swimming in Colorado? These high-tech marvels are popping up everywhere, and I do mean everywhere as in a run-of-the-mill contest like the Sweetheart Meet in Loveland this past weekend.

And wearing these suits, dubbed “technological doping” by some in the sport, is undoubtedly having an impact.

Every winner of each individual event at the Girls 5A High School State Meet a couple of weeks ago was wearing either a LZR Racer or a Nero by Blueseventy (a triathlon apparel manufacturer). That had folks in the stands, including me, thinking and commenting.

As a swimmer and swim mom, the suit controversy boils down to two issues:

• Equity
• Integrity

At anywhere from $300 to more than $500 a pop, these suits ain’t cheap. Furthermore, as in all high-performance attire, they are designed for just a few uses. Given their limited wearability, it’s not the best return on investment when you figure three to five races.

Let’s face it. Not everyone in the sport can afford such suits, nor should they be forced to. This isn’t hockey with expensive ice time or tons of equipment. The beauty of swimming is it can be a relatively inexpensive sport.

Unfortunately, with the introduction of these high-performance suits, the pressure to keep up is there. You have to wonder what it does to a swimmer’s psyche to see their competitors climb up on the blocks wearing a LZR or Blueseventy. And as a swim parent, you feel the pull to conform as well and give your kid an equal advantage, even if it means spending nearly the equivalent of a monthly grocery budget!

That brings up the notion of integrity of the sport. When you have swimmers at the high school level donning more than one of these super suits at a time to provide even greater buoyancy, and you have record books being completely rewritten, you have to stop and wonder.

I don’t pretend to be some snooty purist opposed to change. As I said, when the suits first came out, I, too, was excited, and it is fun to see such fast times.

At the same time, I’m glad to see FINA take up the issue, and I hope other governing bodies, such as USA Swimming, will be more aggressive. In all fairness, USA Swimming has ruled that effective May 15, swimmers 12 and younger will no longer be allowed to wear suits that cover the neck, extend past the shoulder nor past the knee unless for religious or medical reasons.

Personally, at the very least, I think the high-performance suits should be banned from competitions below the Sectional level, including high school meets.

In the end, as Mark Shubert of USA Swimming said: Shouldn’t it be about the swimming and not the suit?

 

Going the Distance -- Sort of

An Aspen woman was hailed this weekend as the first woman to complete a solo trans-Atlantic swim. Newspapers reported her incredible feat – a swim across the ocean in a remarkable 24 days. Benoit Lecomte, the only man known to have completed the solo swim, took more than 70 days to make the crossing.

So what gives? Turns out Jennifer Figge didn’t actually swim all the way across the Atlantic. The 56-year-old Coloradoan was only in the water 19 of the 24 days and some days she was only in the water briefly – as few as 21 minutes because of high seas. The rest of the time she was aboard a catamaran, which towed her shark-proof cage. Understandably the boat couldn’t drop anchor in the middle of the ocean and continued to proceed westward with Figge aboard.

Although her official distance hasn’t been recorded, a story in today’s Rocky Mountain News  estimates she covered about 350 miles – far short of the 2,700-miles between her starting point off the coast of Africa to Trinidad.

Either way, hats off to Figge. That’s a lot of strokes. At the same time, it appears that the record/dream of a woman making the crossing is still out there waiting to be conquered.