June 27, 2008 I think the cart is before the horse here - if we put the hideously garish design aside and pay attention to how the sport of swimming and its constituents have fallen victim to a marketing campaign that would make the Apple iPhone envious, we will see that we are being duped.

Speedo has national coaches and federations, not to mention FINA, eating out of their hands. They are playing the supply versus demand game here. At a time when elite athletes are grovelling to Speedo to get their hands on a suit only to be told there is a worldwide shortage, we get this announcement.

Speedo, along with a few hand picked individuals, are set to make a killing by exploiting the forgotten majority of the swimming world, i.e. Age Group and Masters Swimmers. There is no other sport in the world that requires so much sacrifice from the athletes and in return allows so much profit for an elite few. Once you get past approximately 20-30 or so swimmers who make a decent living from swimming there is a major drop off.

Sorry for the rant, and I don't mean to single out Speedo here, but after weeks of debate over these suits I feel the point has been missed. In the years to come technological advances will become the norm, however the blatant exploitation of the sport and its participants should never be accepted.

I guess we started on a slippery slope when we kowtowed to NBC with morning finals. There's no need to revisit that issue - that dead horse has been flogged enough.
Submitted by: abitofzipzip

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