Swimsuit Competition At The World Championships

Because of the technical swimsuit controversy in pool swimming, we thought it would be interesting to see what technical swimsuits were worn by the open water swimmers at the 2009 World Swimming Championships.

We noted the swimsuits of all the swimmers in the 5K and 10K races.

Before the start of each race, the swimmers walked approximately 100 meters from the call room to the water's edge.

This gave us plenty of time to correctly identify and count the swimsuits worn by the open water swimmers. If there was any doubt as to what manufacturer made a swimsuit, we did not count in any manufacturer's total. The results of two races are listed below:

The participants in the women's 5K race wore the following:

16 swimmers wore blueseventy
16 swimmers wore Arena
8 swimmers wore Speedo
2 swimmers wore swimsuits that could not be identified
1 swimmer wore TYR
1 swimmer wore Diana

The participants in the men's 10K race wore the following:

16 swimmers wore blueseventy
9 swimmers wore Speedo
9 swimmers wore swimsuits that could not be identified
6 swimmers wore Arena
5 swimmers wore TYR
2 swimmers wore Jaked
1 swimmer wore Adidas

What To Wear

Speedo or TYR? XTerra Wetsuits or Blueseventy? Arena or Diana? We have written about what the world's elite marathon swimmers wore at the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships (click here), but this is a difficult decision for everyone.



FINA is currently reviewing the procedures for swimwear approval, specifically in terms of the swimsuit material, thickness, use, shape and availability.



The swimwear manufacturers, FINA Technical Swimming Committee (whose members include Don Blew of Australia, Carol Zaleski of the USA, Soeren Korbo of Denmark, Ricardo Moura of Brazil, Javier Careaga of Mexico, Harold Cliff of Canada, Shigeo Ogata of Japan, Yuan Jiawei of China, Ben Ekumbo of Kenya, Michel Salles of France, Andrea Thielenhaus of Germany and Andriy Vlaskov of Ukraine), FINA Athletes Commission (whose members include Janet Evans of the USA, Alexander Popov of Russia, Gustavo Borges of Brazil, Penny Heyns of South Africa, Fernando Platas of Mexico, Luo Xuejuan of China, Miyako Tanaka of Japan, Irina Viguzova of Russia, Francesco Attolico of Italy, Karine Schuler of France, Daniel Kowalski of Australia and Attila Czene of Hungary), FINA Coaches Commission (whose members include Osvaldo Arsenio of Argentina, Leiff Carlsson of Sweden, Alan Thompson of Australia, Shaozhen Zhong of China, Juan Jane Giralt of Spain and John Leonard of the USA) and the FINA Legal Commission will meet in Lausanne, Switzerland on February 20, 2009.

The different commissions will discuss the current issues facing the sport and study eventual solutions for the future, together with independent experts. FINA will then take appropriate action in the FINA Bureau meeting from March 12-14, 2009 in Dubai (UAE).

The issue of swimwear approval is clearly a complex one and, to its credit, FINA is asking for collaboration from its stakeholders, so its final decisions can be globally accepted and understandable by the worldwide swimming community.

Upper photo by Javier Blazquez at the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships.

Best Open Water Swimming Suit

At the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships in Seville, arguably the most pressure-packed, competitive, fast-paced open water swimming race in history, other than the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim , it was interesting to note the types of swim suits worn by the athletes.

On the women’s side, I was able to confirm the following competitive suits that the athletes wore in the 10K Olympic qualification swim:

Speedo – 22
blueseventy – 7
TYR – 5
Arena – 4
Adidas – 2
NIKE – 1
Diana – 1

On the men’s side, I was able to confirm the following swim suits that the athletes wore:

Speedo – 12
blueseventy – 12
Arena – 8
TYR – 3
Adidas – 3

It must be noted that I was only able to confirm the suits of 42 of the 51 female swimmers in the competition and 38 of the 55 male swimmers due to the myriad activities at the start and finish of the event. I observed these suits with a colleague while we were standing near the starting dock before each of the 10K races on May 3rd (women) and May 4th (men), 2008

NOTE: this information should NOT be taken as definitive information or an implied or explicit endorsement of any particular suit style or manufacturer. As any manufacturer, coach, swimmer or data analyst knows, the unknown information on the remaining 9 female swimmers and the remaining 17 male swimmers can change the interpretation of the information presented. Additionally, some federations had required swimmers to wear certain swim suits, while other federations left the decision up to the athletes.

Upper photo taken just before the start of the women's Olympic 10K qualification race at the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships.

Lower photo taken by Giorgio Scala of Deep Blue Media.