FINA confirms bodysuit ban, to introduce textile restrictions

ROME - Swimming’s world controlling body FINA confirmed a ban on bodysuits from next year and said it would also be introducing strict textile restrictions.

Newly-elected FINA president Julio Maglione said at a press conference here: “We respect the decision that the FINA congress took on July 24.”

A Swiss laboratory that is conducting research into the thickness and buoyancy of the materials is to send information about the allowed textiles to swimsuit manufacturers by Sep 30.

Performance-enhancing high technology body suits with polyurethane panels or made entirely out of the material, have led to a flood of world records in recent times and FINA is attempting to return to the time when the emphasis was more on the swimmer than on the suits that they were wearing.

Under the new rules men are permitted to wear suits that extend from the naval to above the knees, while women’s suits must have a bare neck and shoulders and end above the knees.

It is unclear exactly when the new rules will be introduced.

“The rules will be applied in 2010. That can be April or May. It depends on the time manufacturers need to pass from polyurethane to textiles,” the FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu said.

The FINA Congress had earlier adopted with an overwhelming majority such a proposal put forward by US swimming.