International Capsules: Swimsuit issue: Sport's leaders say ‘Not so fast'
ROME — The swimmers on the pool deck in Rome are ogling each other’s high-tech bodysuits like fashionistas on the runways of Milan, thinking of gliding into history with yet another record-smashing time.
The leaders of the sport, however, are saying: Not so fast.
With all the astonishing technological advances of the past year and a half threatening to turn swimming into "a joke of a sport," as one top coach put it, officials on Thursday took a cautious step toward reining things in.
FINA, the sport’s governing body, approved a proposal backed by USA Swimming that adds two key words to a rule stating: "No swimmer shall be permitted to use or wear any device that may aid his speed, buoyancy or endurance during a competition." The new rule bars "any device or swimsuit" that aids performance.
The new rule comes just as Michael Phelps and Co. prepared to make a splash at the world swimming championships
"Now the line is in the sand. This week. It cannot go past this week," said Alan Thompson, longtime leader of the Australian national team and one of swimming’s most influential figures. "This is a great sport. There are great people involved in it. We must return it back to the credibility it once had."
That credibility has certainly been threatened by a mind-boggling assault on the record book. Last year, 108 world marks were set, off the charts even in an Olympic year with all the top swimmers in peak form. The trend is still going strong in 2009, with nearly 30 records falling already — an astonishingly high number coming on the heels of the Beijing Games, with many top swimmers taking time off, reducing their training regimen or struggling to stay motivated.
Some were beginning to wonder, Thompson among them, if any current records will still be standing after the eight-day world championships, the biggest meet outside the Olympics.
"We felt like that was a good victory," Mark Schubert, head coach and general manager of the U.S. national team, told The Associated Press, when asked about the rule change.
Still, there’s plenty of skepticism that FINA will follow up on the rule change with meaningful restrictions — especially after it gave the green light to most new-age suits for Rome — and whatever is done from here won’t have any impact on these championships.
"When you put that thing on, it feels amazing," said American backstroke star Aaron Peirsol, who wears the Arena X-Glide. "It definitely feels like something different than the suits we used five or six years ago."
Swimsuit manufacturers also are a major source of funding, whether it’s a top national programs such as the U.S. or Australia (both sponsored by Speedo), or a top swimmer such as Phelps who gets millions from his endorsement deal with the same company. Speedo doled out a $1 million bonus to its most famous athlete after he broke Mark Spitz’s record for most golds in a single Olympics.
"FINA doesn’t really understand what they want to do," Peirsol said. "They have no idea. I wish they did. But if they had any idea, they would have made their minds up last year. They opened up their own can of worms and the floodgates opened."
Some have suggested going back to old-style suits like the ones worn until the 1990s, remnants of an era when everyone thought the less fabric in a suit, the better. Male swimmers wore barely there briefs, while the women wouldn’t have dreamed of covering their arms or legs.
Everything changed with the introduction of bodysuits at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, made of fabrics that reduced the resistance of the water.
Then, in February 2008, the technological arms (and legs) race really took off. Speedo unveiled the LZR Racer, developed with help from NASA and worn by most swimmers setting records in 2008. That included Phelps, who became the winningest Olympian ever when he captured eight gold medals in Beijing, seven of them with world record times.
FINA barely seemed to notice, which left the door open for other companies to take on the LZR. Speedo’s signature suit is now considered sooooo last year up against the polyurethane attire developed by Arena and Jaked, the latter a small Italian manufacturer that seemingly came out of nowhere.
Suddenly, the Jaked suit is all the rage.
"That was the one I felt the most comfortable in and felt would give myself the best opportunity to swim fast," Australian breaststroke star Brenton Rickard said.
The ever-changing suit landscape prompted Speedo to allow its endorsed swimmers to switch to another company’s suit if they felt it would help their performance. Even so, those who took the offer can’t help but wonder if it might have financial ramifications down the road.
"I’ve got my fingers crossed," said another Aussie, Andrew Lauterstein, who won three medals in a Speedo LZR at last year’s Olympics but will wear a different suit in Rome. "My management had a meeting with them (Wednesday) regarding my decision."
Not surprisingly, both Phelps and fellow American star Ryan Lochte have stuck with Speedo, the company that provides a large chunk of their take-home pay.
"I’m still faster than most people in those other suits," Lochte said. "I feel like it’s a challenge, because those other suits are supposed to be faster."
FINA insists that it is taking steps to bring everything under control.
The U.S. was expected to present another proposal Friday that would prevent suits from covering anything beyond the shoulders or below the knees, coinciding with Julio Maglione of Uruguay taking over from Mustapha Larfaoui as FINA’s president.
"It will be interesting to see if that passes as well, but certainly ... there was a strong sentiment against what is going on," Schubert said.
FINA’s 22-person executive bureau is also expected to change in Friday’s congress. Next week, the new panel will decide on rules that take effect in 2010.
"That’s going to be another step forward," executive director Cornel Marculescu said. "The most important thing is defining rules for buoyancy, thickness, permeability and compression — and developing scientific tests."
Thompson said it’s time for the powerhouse nations, mainly Australia and the U.S., to take a more active role in deciding the rules.
"We’ve got to step up and say what we think," the coach said. "Everyone has been sitting back and waiting for FINA to show some leadership. Well, they have to show leadership right now or we have to speak to them to make sure they do. I don’t want any drastic measure," such as splitting off to form a new organization.
"But I think everybody needs to be much stronger."
The swimmers are tired of all the talk about suits, which already has disrupted their preparations and figures to be an overriding theme in Rome.
"It kind of stinks for people who do well from their own natural abilities and hard work to have people owe that improvement to the suit," American Matt Grevers said.
There’s a good side to it, though. The debate over swimsuits has kept people talking about the sport beyond its usual once-every-four-years limelight.
"I love the fact that swimming is getting as much publicity as it is," U.S. sprint specialist Cullen Jones said. "You have to say part of that is the suit."
Phelps tests world championship pool
ROME — Two Chinese swimmers stood and stared in awe. Photographers snapped away.
Michael Phelps arrived in Rome for the world championships Thursday for his first swim in the Foro Italico pool.
"He did his normal thing we would do after a trip. He did a little bit of fast swimming and it looked pretty good," said Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman. "It’s a beautiful venue and we’re looking forward to it."
Phelps will swim only three individual events in Rome — the 200 freestyle, and 100 and 200 butterfly — plus all three relays. At this month’s U.S. championships, he set a world record in the 100 butterfly, although he pulled out of the 100 free with a sore neck.
"I think things are looking pretty good, so we’ll see how it goes," Bowman said.
Phelps, the winner of a record eight gold medals at last summer’s Olympics, wore a blue cap, designer sunglasses and headphones. Once on the pool deck, he wrapped a towel around himself and changed into a brief black and green swimsuit, then dove in without a cap.
Photographers followed his every stroke, particularly when Phelps stopped to embrace Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice. Rice won three gold medals in Beijing’s Water Cube.
"I’ve talked with him about how he handles the media," she said. "I’m grateful to be able to talk about that with him, knowing my mental ups and down from things like that and sort of him seeming so calm about it all. It’s good to learn how he handles that pressure and really just focusing on what’s important and just letting that other stuff go behind you."
Phelps and the rest of the U.S. squad trained in Riccione on Italy’s Adriatic coast for the last week before taking a short flight to Rome.
"Training in Riccione was great," Bowman said. "Where we stayed was great. Everything couldn’t have been better."
-- Andrew Dampf
Russia wins its fourth gold at the synchro pool
ROME — Natalia Ishchenko gave Russia another gold in synchronized swimming Thursday with what she called a perfect performance.
The silver medalist thought she was even better.
Rekindling the debate over judging in a sport where the results often seemed determined in advance, Spain’s Gemma Mengual was clearly upset that her performance in the final of solo free came up a half-point shy of Ishchenko’s winning total.
"I hope one day the judges understand that people expect fair and accurate judgments from them," said Mengual, who sobbed on the medal stand as she received her silver.
Judging has long been an issue in the gelled-up sport, which is dominated by the Russians and leaves everyone else believing they have little chance, no matter how well they perform.
Performing to Tchaikovsky’s "Swan Lake," Ishchenko added to the gold she won in solo technical with a score of 98.833 points, receiving one perfect 10 for technical merit and a straight line of 9.9s for artistic impression.
Russia has won four of five events at the synchro pool. It didn’t compete in the free combination.
"I am very happy with my performance," Ishchenko said. "Only at the end of my exercise did I realize I had won the gold medal. My performance was perfect, and this is the result of a lot of training and commitment."
Her coach, Tatiana Danchenko, had a similar assessment.
"I liked very much what I saw," the coach said. "This is the result we expected. Since her debut, Ishchenko has been a great athlete."
Mengual received 98.333 for her routine to Ray Charles’ version of the John Lennon song, "Yesterday." She was especially upset that her marks for artistic impression — all 9.8s — were slightly lower than the ones for technical merit, where she equaled Ishchenko.
"I was more confident than (the preliminaries) and I felt the crowd supporting me a lot," Mengual said. "The problem is still how the judges evaluate our performances.
"My strength is the artistic impression, and I can’t understand how this was evaluated of lower quality than the technical merit."
It was essentially a two-woman race. Italy’s Beatrice Adelizzi was far behind (95.500) in third, beating Canada’s Chloe Isaac by a half point and pumping up the home crowd at the Foro Italico.
"I still can’t believe I won this medal," Adelizzi said. "I really gave it all I had. I would like to thank the crowd for their warm support."
-- Paul Newberry
Crippen keeps bronze in men’s 10K open water race
ROME — Francis Crippen kept his bronze medal in the 10-kilometer open water race at the world championships after USA Swimming won an appeal Thursday.
The Italian team protested that Crippen should have been disqualified for swimming outside the ropes guiding contestants to the finish. FINA accepted Italy’s protest after the race Wednesday but allowed the Americans to appeal.
Thomas Lurz of Germany won the race, with Andrew Gemmell of the United States finishing second. Italian swimmer Valero Cleri remained fourth.
"The last 20 hours have been extremely frustrating, but we were able to get through it," Crippen said. "I was just really nervous, because it was so out of our hands. And that’s just so different to the way swimming is. I always feel like you can control it with your performance.
"I swam one of the best races in my career yesterday."
Lurz, Gemmell and Crippen will finally get their medals Friday after the women’s 3-meter synchronized diving competition.
While there is nothing in the rules requiring swimmers to stay within the buoys at the finish, Italy argued that organizers made a pre-race announcement telling swimmers to stay between the ropes.
"They never made that announcement. They said they were directional only and that’s what I told my team," U.S. diving head coach Paul Asmuth said.
Crippen said he didn’t voluntarily go outside the rope, but he was swimming side by side with Lurz when he came upon the buoy. He put his head down and hit the buoy head on, swimming under it and popping up on the other side of the diagonal lane line.
"I was pretty much going as fast as I could, and then all of a sudden I hit the buoy head on," said Crippen, who was swimming at his first worlds. "I was on the left side of the lane line, so I just took a couple of strokes, dove under the lane line and swam as fast as I could to the finish."
"They protested, but really all I did was hurt myself," he added. "I had a chance to win the race and I settled for a bronze medal."
-- Andrew Dampf
He Chong wins men’s 3-meter springboard gold
ROME — China’s He Chong followed up his Olympic gold with a world championship in the 3-meter springboard Thursday, pulling off one of the most difficult dives on his final attempt to beat out American Troy Dumais and Canadian star Alexandre Despatie.
He finished with the dive known as 5156B — a forward 2½ somersault with three twists in pike position — and received scores ranging from 7.0 to 8.0. While both Dumais and Despatie received better marks, He’s twisting, turning maneuver had a 3.8 degree of difficulty, giving him enough points to clinch the gold.
Slowed in training by a lingering knee injury, He didn’t think it was an especially strong performance. But it was enough to give the 22-year-old his first individual world title with 505.20 points.
"I am satisfied, even though I made a few mistakes and some of my movements were not perfect. I felt a bit nervous," he said. "I think I performed average. The level of difficulty of my dives was quite high. I did not have a particularly bad dive. I just think I could have done better in each one of them."
Neither Dumais nor Despatie had a dive with a degree of difficulty above 3.5. Dumais finished with 498.40 points, while Despatie had 490.30.
Still, the 29-year-old American won his second silver medal of these world championships and the fourth of his career. He has yet to win gold, but isn’t giving up even though he’s at an age when many of his contemporaries have long since retired.
"Silver is great, but I know I can do better," Dumais said.
Dumais was fourth going to the final round, when he received a string of 8s and 8.5s for his final dive — a reverse 2½ somersault with 1½ twists. That was enough to surge past Despatie, a three-time world champion, and China’s other diver, Zhang Xinhua, who settled for fourth.
"I did not feel the pressure going into the last dive because back home we practice this dive all the time," said Dumais, who also won silver in 3-meter synchronized. "My coach gives me a score to aim for and that keeps it fun and real. He has great faith in me, and that is why I went into this event mentally strong."
Despatie had the top score of the semifinals but couldn’t match it in the final. He settled for his second bronze medal of the worlds, having also placed third in 3-meter springboard, and the eighth championship medal of his career.
"To be top three in the world is always something positive," said Despatie, who won silver on springboard at the last two Olympics. "I would like to have done better. I know I can do better. But I’ve always said this is a sport of the day. Today, I did not bring out my best diving. But it was still good enough for top three."
-- Paul Newberry
China’s Guo, Wu lead after synchro diving prelimas
ROME — China’s Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia dominated the preliminaries of women’s 3-meter synchronized diving, putting them in line to win their fourth world title as a team.
Guo, already the winningest diver in world championship history with nine titles, will be going for her fifth straight synchro win on the springboard in Friday’s final. It would be her fourth teamed with Wu, also her partner while winning the last two Olympic titles.
Guo and Wu had the best marks for each of the five rounds Thursday and totaled 342.90 points. The Italian team of Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape was second with 316.20, followed by Russia’s Julia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozniakova with 305.49.
Americans Kelci Bryant and Ariel Rittenhouse were seventh with 293.40.
He Chong wins men’s 3-meter springboard gold
ROME — China’s He Chong has won the men’s 3-meter springboard at the world championships.
He scored 505.20 points Thursday to beat Troy Dumais of the United States, who had 498.40. The bronze went to Canada’s Alexandre Despatie with 490.30.
Despatie was denied his fourth world title, but still picked up the eighth medal of his career.
Russian pair lead synchro duet free prelims
ROME — The Russian pair of Natalia Ishchenko and Svetlana Romashina led the preliminary round of the duet free in synchronized swimming at the world championships.
Ishchenko and Romashina earned a near-perfect 99.000 points Thursday. Andrea Fuentes and Gemma Mengual of Spain were second with 97.833 points and identical Chinese twins Jiang Tingting and Jiang Wenwen were third with 96.666.
The top 12 pairs advance to Friday’s final.
Sumo
Ancient sport of sumo hits the beach in Japan
TOKYO — Trade that bikini for a loincloth. Japan’s ancient sport of sumo wrestling is hitting the beach this summer.
The aim is to promote sportsmanship, introduce youngsters to Japan’s traditional sport and raise environmental awareness. Beach sumo was created by Tamakairiki, a former sumo whose real name is Yukio Kawabe.
"Kids only see sumo on TV, so this gives them a chance to experience it up close," he said.
Sumo has been criticized in recent years over a variety of problems: the death of a teenage wrestler, marijuana use and the attitude of some of its stars.
Professional sumo is a sport with a strict hierarchy. Women aren’t allowed to compete and many newcomers are unable to cope with its rigid rules.
The number of new wrestlers has declined in recent years and the sport is increasingly dominated by foreign wrestlers like grand champions Hakuho and Asashoryu of Mongolia. Tamakairiki hopes his approach will lure more young Japanese.
"We haven’t had anyone turn professional yet, but you never know," Tamakairiki said. "The kids really enjoy this and it teaches them to deal with physical contact in a safe environment."
Before each tournament, Tamakairiki goes through a list of do’s and don’ts, which include punching, pulling hair and, of course, kicking sand in an opponent’s face.
Like professional sumo, opponents always bow to each other before and after every bout and throw salt to purify the ring.
Tamakairiki’s beach sumo tournaments are run in conjunction with Beach Life Japan, an organization set up by Shoji Setoyama, a former beach volleyball player who represented Japan at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
"Beaches are threatened by trash and rising sea levels," Tamakairiki said. "We teach kids about beach preservation after every tournament so they come away with an appreciation of beaches and sumo."
-- Jim Armstrong
Marathons
Ryan Hall plans to run New York City Marathon
NEW YORK — Ryan Hall will run the New York City Marathon this fall, returning to the site of his dominant victory in the 2007 Olympic trials.
The Nov. 1 race will be run on a different course from the one where he set the U.S. Olympic trials record.
"It’s just one of those places when you go there and get off the plane you just feel excited and feel like good things are going to happen," Hall said during a conference call Thursday.
The 26-year-old Californian became the second-fastest American marathoner when he finished fifth in London last year. Now he’s looking to turn that promise into a major marathon victory.
Hall was disappointed with his 10th-place finish at the Beijing Olympics. He was third at this year’s Boston Marathon.
This will be Hall’s first NYC Marathon. He will also run the NYC Half-Marathon on Aug. 16.
When he was looking to make the switch to the longer distance, Hall rode in the lead vehicle at the 2006 race.
"It’s a marathon that kind of caught my heart first and really turned me into a marathoner," he said.
At the Olympic trials two years ago, Hall’s elation didn’t last long. Minutes after his victory, he learned that former training partner Ryan Shay had collapsed and died during the race.
Olympics
USOC doubles fundraising goal in June
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A donation drive that focused on $5 gifts has netted the U.S. Olympic Committee $4.4 million — more than double its goal.
The USOC announced the fundraising figures Wednesday, calling it the largest amount it had ever raised in June. The program began on the Memorial Day weekend and ended July 4.
It was called "America Supports Team USA" and was designed to make it easy for individuals to give $5 by logging onto Olympic-related Web sites.
The USOC said it had hoped to raise $2 million through the program. It more than doubled that, thanks in part to matching donations from sponsors.
Volleyball
Salmon, Mapeli banned from volleyball for doping
LONDON — Volleyball players Riley Salmon of the United States and Daniela Lanner Mapeli of Brazil have been suspended for doping violations.
Governing body FIVB said Thursday that Salmon received a fourth-month ban after her regular medication for hypertension was replaced by her doctor with Avalide, which contains the prohibited substance hydrochlorothizide.
Mapeli received a three-month suspension after taking the over-the-counter flu medication Gripefago C, which contains the prohibited substance isometheptene, during the CEV Women’s Final Four in Rome.
FIVB said: "Although any violation of the anti-doping regulations must be taken seriously, none of these cases resulted from intentional doping."
Sailing
Bertarelli defends Alinghi engine to trim sails
LE BOUVERET, Switzerland — Alinghi boss Ernesto Bertarelli has defended the use of an engine his team put on its catamaran to trim the sails during the next America’s Cup.
The Swiss tycoon says the rules don’t exclude the use of an engine for that purpose, adding that the idea came up as part of the defending champion’s response to the challenge of bitter rival BMW Oracle Racing.
The two teams have been involved in a convoluted, two-year legal dispute about rules for their boats and the competition.
Bertarelli said Thursday that this is the most expensive America’s Cup he’s ever helped fund, but denied the legal bickering has damaged interest in the cup and describing the new boat — Alinghi 5 — as unique.
