Last year, 70 meet records were broken during the six NCAA men’s and women’s swimming and diving championships, in large part because of the new technology suits that streamlined swimmers’ aquatic profiles and made them more buoyant.

Odds are that the record total of records will drop significantly during the 2010 meets since the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Committees adopted material, thickness and coverage restrictions on the suits for future competition.

While the entire swimming community supported the decision (the sport’s international and national governing bodies adopted similar policies), coaches are wary of an emotional drop-off facing this year’s crop of swimmers who will be hard-pressed to match the swift times posted by their immediate forebears (and in many cases themselves).

“The suits were an easy way out for everybody in that they allowed you to do certain things in the water that normally you have to work hard for,” said Minnesota State Moorhead women’s coach Todd Peters, a member of the Division II Swimming and Diving Committee. “The smart coaches are going to focus more on stroke technique this year and teaching the athletes how to achieve that same position in the water.”

Peters said swimmers will have to be “re-convinced” that everything they got from the suits they can get on their own through changes in stroke technique.

Michigan women’s coach Jim Richardson agreed, saying he began warning swimmers more than a year ago not to judge their performance strictly on swims in which they wore the sleek suits.

“We told them that their peak-performance swims in these techno suits were going to be all over the charts with regard to previous performances and relative to one another as well,” Richardson said. “You couldn’t rely on these suits to tell you how much you had improved. Instead, we told them to rely on what they did day in and day out in practice.”

“Initially, a few student-athletes were upset about the restrictions because they enjoyed the feeling they got from the suits,” Peters said. “They enjoyed swimming fast; a lot of them achieved lifetime bests. That’s difficult for them to deal with mentally now that the suits are gone. (They are thinking) ‘am I going to be able to replicate those performances?’ Most of them are confident that they can.”

Financial benefits

If nothing else, the suit restrictions may have eased budget burdens on athletics departments and in many cases the swimmers themselves. The techno suits were expensive (about $250 and up) and didn’t last more than a meet or two.

The larger programs that could afford to supply them did so, but many NCAA swimmers had to equip themselves at their own expense.

Denison men’s and women’s coach Greg Parini said, “We all took a big sigh of relief when the committee announced its decision.”

“We had to stretch real hard last year to make sure our kids were outfitted because you don’t want to show up at a gunfight with a knife,” he said. “Not having that pressure this year to deal with an additional budget issue lets me sleep a little better at night.”

Peters said now that the techno suits are gone, more schools will be able to purchase traditional suits for the student-athletes rather than ask them to buy them on their own.

Perhaps the only people at a disadvantage are those who purchased the techno suits and didn’t wear them out.

“I’ve heard some people talk about using them on days in practice that are designed to be recovery days and you want to swimmers not to have to work as hard,” Richardson said, half jokingly.

Overall, though, Richardson and others are delighted the swimming community took action on the suit issue.

He noted what occurred in the U.S. national meet this summer in the last heat in the 200-meter individual medley when all eight swimmers in the top qualifying heat came out wearing briefs instead of the full-body, impermeable weaponry. After the swimmers removed their warm-ups and stepped forward, everyone in the facility from the spectators to the coaches to the officials to the scorers and timers gave them a standing ovation.

“That was a huge statement as to what the vast majority of people involved in swimming want the sport to look like,” Richardson said.

“I’m not opposed to technology as long as it treats everyone the same. But when you drastically alter someone’s aquatic profile – especially someone whose profile can really be adjusted – and that adjustment results in a huge performance enhancement, that’s where I have a problem.”