How / why did swimming ban the full body suits?

The anti vaporfly crusade on LetsRun has gotten to be ridiculous. The anti-technology and recency bias has prevented the website (and readers) to enjoy the performances of great athletes.

The anti-vaporfly argument ignores other critical developments in running technology history including:

1) development of the modern track. These tracks ar much faster than cinder and rendered historical records obsolete.

2) development of the modern running shoes. Shoes today are lighter and faster than shoes historically and contribute to faster records.

3) improved sports medicine. Better understanding and better technology has allowed for improve recovery and performance. For example, the AlterG has allowed for improved recovery after injury. The price, moreover, prevents every athlete from being able to afford it

I personally don’t understand why we embrace certain aspects yet not others. There are historical examples of records being rendered obsolete, dramatic shoe improvements, and segmentation of technology based on money, sponsorship, etc

The issue is the difference between reducing impediments to performance and providing enhancements to performance. There are similarities in both swimming and track in this way. Improvement in track surfaces is similar to improvements in pool design that reduces wave turbulence. Both reduce impediments to the athlete's performance, but neither make the athlete faster (which would occur if a swimming pool had a current behind the swimmer or track straightaway were sloped downhill).

Improved shoes that are lighter are similar to swim suits that are tighter fit and reduce surface drag for the swimmer. These only reduce impediments and provide no enhancement to the performance of the athlete. However, when the shoe or the suit provides "propulsion" to a runner or jumper or elevates a swimmer's body position in the water, then an enhancement is taking place, which violates the integrity of the sport.

FFF wrote:

Wejo:

Speaking of buoyancy, I'm not sure I've ever seen another distance runner this high off the ground. This photo isn't quite close enough, but the bounce EK was getting tells me that he ran faster the last time, when he missed going under 2 hours.

You clearly have not seen enough running photos. I don’t have the time to compile the 1000++ photos with similar or greater height off the ground to offset your misimpression that these are giant springs. I saw a pair at Dicks in Indianapolis and tried them on. Quite nice, but really just amazingly light shoes (and shoe-like, not absurdly different or enhanced). That seem to guide one to have a good stride. No trampoline included.

kiowavt wrote:

FFF wrote:

Wejo:

Speaking of buoyancy, I'm not sure I've ever seen another distance runner this high off the ground. This photo isn't quite close enough, but the bounce EK was getting tells me that he ran faster the last time, when he missed going under 2 hours.

You clearly have not seen enough running photos. I don’t have the time to compile the 1000++ photos with similar or greater height off the ground to offset your misimpression that these are giant springs. I saw a pair at Dicks in Indianapolis and tried them on. Quite nice, but really just amazingly light shoes (and shoe-like, not absurdly different or enhanced). That seem to guide one to have a good stride. No trampoline included.

I tried on a pair and immediately started laughing, it was like running on a trampoline

Meanwhile in cycling, the Tour de France requires bikes to weigh 14.99 lbs, have 12 spokes and have a triangular frame (no beam bikes). Although TDF is not about time records, it’s about lower cumulative time than your competitors that year. They only started allowing disc breaks in 2017.

So if someone put actual springs (think mini pogo sticks on each foot) or wheels on shoes would you still thing an attempt to ban it is just an “anti-technology” crusade?

The shoe acts like a spring, which violates the spirit of what a shoe should be.

There is also a parallel within track and field: iirc many of the javelin leading performances of the early '90s were rescinded - something to do with aerodynamics.

kiowavt wrote:

FFF wrote:

Wejo:

Speaking of buoyancy, I'm not sure I've ever seen another distance runner this high off the ground. This photo isn't quite close enough, but the bounce EK was getting tells me that he ran faster the last time, when he missed going under 2 hours.

You clearly have not seen enough running photos. I don’t have the time to compile the 1000++ photos with similar or greater height off the ground to offset your misimpression that these are giant springs. I saw a pair at Dicks in Indianapolis and tried them on. Quite nice, but really just amazingly light shoes (and shoe-like, not absurdly different or enhanced). That seem to guide one to have a good stride. No trampoline included.

Show me, then.

How about Power Lifters using Bench Shirts? That's cheating too

It's simple to me. If we were going to be honest we'd

1) Allow the new technology but maybe put a limit on stack height.

2) Despite #1, any shoe used in a competition must be commercially available at least 6 months before. All athletes must indicate what shoes they raced in.

3) The 2016 Olympic marathon results should be invalidated as too many athletes were guilty of mechanical doping.

I don't think #3 will ever happen but the shoes were illegal as they violated 143.2.

"The purpose of shoes for competition is to give protection and stability to the feet and a firm grip on the ground. Such shoes, however, must not be constructed so as to give athletes any unfair assistance or advantage. "

The shoes were constructed to give the athletes a 4% advantage in efficiency which can result in a 2.7% performance gain. The fact that the shoes were secretive and not commercially available is the icing on the cake.

Your arguments about other things improving are true but aren't relevant here. If I"m looking to see if someone committed pass interference, I don't really care that other athletes jumped off sides or committed pass interference in the pass. What I care about is did they commit pass interference in this case? And the answer is yes.

"But aren't all new shoes some sort of pass interference?" Again, that's irrelevant. I'd argue that most new shoes are debatable, maybe the equivalent of hand checking. What we saw in 2016 which the shoes was the equivlaent of a DB tackling a receiver. Blatant and obvious.

When tracks get faster, everyone benefits from that. Same thing with sports medicine. Same thing with shoes if they are commercially available. What happened in 2016 was over the line.

Hans and Frans wrote:

How about Power Lifters using Bench Shirts? That's cheating too

Yes, it is, and my Power Lifting colleague pointed that out to me in 2009ish when we were discussing the buoyancy suits. He wished those shirts were banned.

Anyone remember clapper skates? What happened to those.

Also, my kids were Nordic skiers. There is annoying sport. My kids became much more competitive when I became good at waxing their skis.

Lifelong swimmer here. The suits were extremely expensive, upwards of $500 or more pursuit. Virtually all the records were shattered overnight. A lot of swimmers thought, and I think they were right, that swimming became too much about technology, and not enough about the swimmer. There were record set by swimmers in the text suits, who could not approach those times outside of the suits.

Example: Michael Phelps set a WR for the ages in the 200m freestyle in 2008. Was miles ahead of everyone. In 2009, he was beaten, and his record broken, by a German who was wearing a more advanced suit, and had dropped four seconds in a single year. Phelps has taken about four years to cut the same amount of time.

It changed the sport very significantly. That 200m record still stands by the way.

Interested Norseman wrote:

My kids became much more competitive when I became good at waxing their skis.

So did you tell them it was just their dad?

banning full body suits saves the parents and athletes money.

basically a golf ball pattern on top of the suit or some such, will reduce drag that much more.

making it an advantage for those who have the one grand to fork out, or the sponsors, to provide the kit.

while having better shoes that translate more force to forward motion must generally put less force on other areas, like joints, the issue is having one guy with 2 grand nike shoes vs the other guy with off the shelf.

so that is the problem in fair play.

then again, in sports, its not fair.

they want the genetics and certain training and certain food to be the parameters for the sport.

then again genetics, that is the crap shoot, not fair.

food, well, most people in the west eat garbage, so growing up, your shitoutofluck there.

and the training, well if you have the worldclass coach, then you have the advantage, over the guy who comes from

the projects and knows nothing.

there's fair for you.

good luck with your sport . and fair play.

You need to invalidate Rupp, and 1-3 from the women, in the 2016 Trials, as well. They were all cheating, in an early version of the shoes.

One area where the comparison to swimming falls apart is the outsized positive affect of the suits on swimmers with more fat. By compressing all of the fat in it allowed those swimmers to be more buoyant and produce faster times. I recall there was an ncaa coach who had him swimmers put on weight a la football players in the age of tech suits in order to get the biggest advantage. With this in mind not only were certain swimmers getting an advantage from the suits but there was another group that was training for the suits not just the races. It is possible that it could come to this eventually in distance running, at the time in the swimming world this was pretty bonkers.

reader of knowledge wrote:

I think Wejo should read more Alex Hutchinson.

wejo sez: us hear brojos aint not about two dew no stinkin reedin. that be werk. me wuld have two tell them they're survints too turn off the TV and jest tellin them two dew that wuld be to much werk.

rojo wrote:

It's simple to me. If we were going to be honest we'd

You are simple. If you were going to be honest, you'd stop doobyaing your way through life.