Yuliya Efimova’s World Record Swum in Unapproved Suit

MOSCOW, Russia, May 4. ACCORDING to a report by Craig Lord of SwimNews.com, Yuliya Efimova's world record in the 50 meter breaststroke set last week at the Russian Long Course National Championships was swum in an unapproved suit.

"The 30.05 world record set by Yuliya Efimova over 50m breaststroke at Russian nationals in Moscow last week was established in an arena X-Glide, the suit that is yet to be approved for use by FINA and was worn by Alain Bernard on his way to a 46.94 world record in the 100m freestyle at French nationals two weeks ago."

While the swimming world hoped that FINA's Dubai Charter, detailing speedsuit restrictions in a phased-in process, would eliminate confusion, only more confusion has spawned since the rulings were handed down in March.

During the time FINA worked to figure out the best restrictions for speedsuits, the suit manufacturers were not just sitting idly by waiting to be restricted. New suits have been being released, including the new suit by Arena. Also, since there is no simple process by which to have an official determine at the point of the swim if a suit is approved or not, it may be impossible to truly regulate suit usage throughout the world.

It is one thing to have a simple-to-judge rule where you can only swim with one suit, which is the only post Dubai Charter rule to have a strong impact as Therese Alshammar lost a world record due to wearing a modesty suit underneath her speedsuit.

But, it is a completely different story to try to empower swimming officials to be able to regulate, and thus disqualify, record performances during the session of competition when it comes to what suits are authorized and what are not.

Full text of SwimNews.com article.

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