Phelps predicts records will tumble with new swimsuit

NEW YORK - Reuters

Michael Phelps competes in the men’s 100m butterfly heats at the 14th FINA World Championships in this file photo taken in Shanghai on July 29, 2011. REUTERS photo

The bodysuit war that reduced the 2009 swimming world championships to farce and effectively turned the sport into a battle of technology could erupt again yesterday when Michael Phelps took to the catwalk to launch a new outfit for next year’s London Olympics.
Phelps was bitterly opposed to the now-banned swimsuits that were used in Rome two years ago, refusing to wear them because he believed they aided buoyancy, but he is getting ready to promote a new space-age suit. More than 40 world records were set during the championships, setting off howls of protests, and Phelps, who said he considered quitting the sport, was vindicated when the sport’s world governing body FINA agreed to ban them and place a limit on technology.
However, with the start of the London Olympics less than eight months away, Phelps joined fellow Americans Ryan Lochte and Natalie Coughlin yesterday to unveil the latest suit they will wear in London.
Makers Speedo say it is both revolutionary and innovative and will produce a flood of world records at the Olympics.
Before 2009, not all scientists who tested the suits were convinced they provided any real benefits but the claims, which are sure to trigger another technology war with rival suit makers, have nevertheless been a marketing dream for sponsors. For most of the swimmers, the controversy is no more than a storm in a teacup. World records never last long in swimming and Phelps believes all the records set in the now-illegal suits are also doomed to tumble.
“Records are always made to be broken, in my eyes that’s not a question,” Phelps told Reuters in an exclusive interview marking the launch of his appointment as the global face of head&shoulders anti-dandruff shampoo. “If people want to work hard and do it then they will do it. There are still people who have that desire to be the best they can and they will find it. It can be done.”