The celebration of one swimmer was the final provocation. Although the official decision
came later, we know that this celebration led to the ban on super suits in swimming.
The supersuit race was sparked by Adidas in 1998. Ian Thorpe recognized the competitive advantage
and joined them. Controversies and criticisms started popping up. Speedo quickly saw Adidas's
invention as a threat to their business. And before the 2000 Olympics, speedo had already
released a more comfortable suit with better technology than that of Adidas and Ian Thorpe.
That year, speedo was able to boast that 80% of the Olympic medalists swam with the help of their
Fast Skin suit. Although Thorpe made it seem like having tight fabric around the shoulders was easy,
most swimmers preferred shoulder freedom and a strange imitation of scales.
In the next 8 years, technology advanced so much that even NASA was involved. It was no longer
just the fabric, now they had strategic plastic panels. In addition to giving swimmers buoyancy,
the suit gave compression to give them a better shape and increase blood circulation. The LZR
super suit would reach peak performance in Beijing 2008. Practically all Olympic records and a third
of world records were broken using this suit. Controversies continued to escalate. I remember
that for us swimmers, it was a time of total confusion. Watching world records fall over and
over was like eating too much candy. In one hand, you enjoyed it. You knew it was something magical
and unrepeatable. On the other hand, you knew that it would cause discomfort sooner or later.
The suits were too expensive. We mortals did not have enough money to buy 500 dollars swimming
suits that were almost disposable. You didn't know if Peter had beaten you because he was a better
swimmer than you or if it was because he gathered the whole town and instead of paying for Johanna’s
sweet sixteen party they raised money to buy Peter a super suit. And the most confusing thing
was that the adults in charge of regulating the sweets were also delighted with the feast.
Then came the World Cup in Rome 2009 where everything changed.
For the first time in 8 years, Speedo, NASA and their star astronaut had lagged
behind in Technology. They had been overtaken by swimsuit companies with a greater sweet tooth.
Jaked, Arena, among others made 100% Polyurethane suits. We still do not know
exactly how much Paul Biedermann benefited from the super suit in the 200 free. But what is clear
is that the humiliation hurt Phelps so much,
that he threatened to stop swimming if they didn’t do something about the super suits.
FINA officials must’ve thought Michael
and his coach Bob Bowman were bluffing. But everything changed after the 100 butterfly.
The super suit race conflict came down to two of the best swimmers
in two different suits. Cavic came within a hundredth of a second of snatching perfection
from Phelps a year earlier in Beijing. But now, he had seen that Poseidon could bleed.
Phelps was no longer invincible. On top of that, Cavic now had the confidence of
being the world record holder and he had a faster suit than Phelps. On the other hand,
much in his style, Phelps imagined in his rival more than a swimmer. Cavic,
at that time, represented a monster to Phelps. A strange combination of science, technology,
money and greed that had overstayed their welcome and were hurting his most beloved sport.
“Even with this inferior piece of technology…” yelled Phelps without one word, “the swimmer
remains more important than the swim suit”
In the next video we will talk about the fastest swimmer in history, so consider subscribing.