I caught this in passing and never heard what was different about the banned suits.
The passionate say the super suits are destroying the sport.
Less passionate types are still quite unhappy, as the typically polyurethane suits reduce drag and somehow enhance bouyancy.
The rules that take effect in January stipulate that suits are to be made of woven fabric and can’t cover too much of the body.
They’re also being banned at the high school level.That article gives a little more info on what the suits do, and apparently, there’s a high cost - $400-500 for one, and they only last a couple of uses. They’re so tight, that they have a nasty way of failing suddenly. Oops! (on the verge of NSFW) Uh-oh!
Here’s a discussion about how they are different and how the feel:
Some worry about level playing fields, as a race is transformed from a competition between athletes to a competition between swimwear manufacturers.
Thanks for the links, they were special! 
I don’t have a great deal of interest in this particular issue, but what little I have heard and read does leave me puzzled.
First of all, I don’t understand the objection that ‘it would become a contest between swimwear manufacturers’. I’m sure tennis players are regularly trying to find the best racquet to use; skiers are continuously searching for the best skis and the best wax for them; cyclists use bikes that are techologically far in advance of bicycles from 50 years ago; anyone who uses any kind of helmet or protector is looking for the optimum combination of strength and lightness. In other words, there are countless sports where it is given that technology will improve over time, and it’s up to each competitor to pursue the optimum results he or she can obtain, short of doing anything actually banned or illegal. Why should swimming and swimsuits be any different?
There may be some temporary ‘unfairness’ if, for example, a manufacturer signs a contract to supply only one given athlete exclusively, but this is the same for many other sports such as the examples I give above. Over time, technological advances become known about among all relevant manufacturers, and become equally available to all.
Not if a manufacturer holds a patent on the improvement, which they almost certainly will.
I think the issue here is one of degree. When a tennis raquet or golf club manufacturer invents a new feature which improves performance 0.01%, everybody adapts. When somebody invents something which improves performance 10% everybody protests.
This issue comes up periodically in every sport. I recall the flail with gas-turbine powered race cars at Indy in the 1960s. These cars could go significantly faster & with zero mechanical reliablility concerns. You either had one or you lost, period.
After 2 years of that, the ruiles were changed to “level the playing field”, and turbines disappeared because they tilted the rules a little too far the other way.
The introduction of turbines into boat racing (hydroplanes) was similar.
Permitting aluminum bats in Major League Baseball would be a similar upheaval. !00% of the batting records from the pre-aluminum days would fall in the first season or two. A player would either use aluminum, or be sent down to the minors; he could not possibly compete effectively using a wooden bat.
Swimming is a particularly elemental sport. It is as close to zero equipment as you can get. Even running on a track has shoes in addition to the minimum clothing necessary for modesty.
So to take a sport where historically equipment has had just about zero role to play, and suddently inject equipment where you either have it or you lose, period. Well that’s a huge & disruptive change.
Add in the fact the gear is expensive for non-professionals and you raise the spectre of amatuer & high school sports where winners all spend $10G on a year’s worth of gear. Don’t or can’t spend? Then you must lose every time. period.
Pretty disruptive.
Perhaps it’s time to mandate nudity? Or perhaps pasties and minimal coverage below. No photography by spectators and no close-ups. If swimmers started in the water then not much would be visible.
As long as everyone wears the same suit, what’s the difference.
So the manufacturer of the “fast” suit won’t give everyone one for free. Fine, just ban that one.
I realize the problem will quickly come about because you’ll then have competitions where the company gives everyone the suit, so they will set a record.
Then you’ll have TWO sets of world records. Kind of like the number of champions in the various boxing leagues.
And that would divide the competition and “destroy” the sport.
Well it is an Olympic tradition ;). Seriously, most of these “all-covering” body suits are so form fitting swimmers need assitance to get into them and you can tell if they’ve been circumcised or not. Up until the 70s it wasn’t totally unheard off for men’s & boys’ swim meets to be conducted in the nude (although female spectators would’ve been restricted). Female swimmers would probally put up a much greater protest than the men. It would certainly get the Olympics better ratings.
Well, Amanda Beard was 14 when she competed in the 1996 Olympics, nude swimming in that case certainly might have gotten the television coverage more attention, anyway.
Tennis rackets have improved one’s ability at least 10%, IMHO, but certainly more than 0.01%. It wasn’t too long ago when they were made of wood. Now you have carbon, tungsten, and other minerals incorporated into them. Bjorn Borg tried to make a comeback after retiring, but soon had to abandon his wood racket. He just wasn’t competitive with a wood racket, with the greater speeds obtained with composites. (Incidentally, Connors had to use his steel Wilson rackets only because he was under contract to do so; but he had to doctor them up to make them playable.)
In addition, longer rackets became in vogue after Chang began serving faster than he ever did. At first, pro’s were hesitant about the longer rackets, but now they all use them. The difference isn’t much, an inch or two, but they make a difference. The length of the racket is regulated, and IIRC, can be from 27 inches to 29 inches. In addition, some rackets now have a wider head (your choice).
When a pro started using a “spaghetti” racket, the rules had to be changed to outlaw that as it provided too much spin. The spaghetti racket was outlandish, I guess, much like the new swimsuits. So it does appear to be a matter of degree, but the degree seems to be when the innovation is “outlandish,” whatever that means.
The governing body of cycling, the UCI, has put restrictions on the geometry of bikes for competitive road and track cycling for much the same reason as the ban on super swimsuits, i.e. they wanted competition to be about cyclists and not bike designers. The did not want to see their sport become like Formula 1 motor racing. They have also put a minimum weight limit on bike frames but this is a safety measure as they did not want frames so thin that they failed at a critical moment.
I can’t remember where I read it, but one article stated that the suit provided trunk support, allowing a swimmer with weaker trunk muscles to swim as well as a swimmer with strong trunk muscles. So even if both were wearing the suit, the suit could help a weaker athlete win.