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A New Zealand sports scientist involved in testing a world-beating swimming suit has declared the outfit perfectly legal.
Swimmers wearing the new LZR Racer suits have broken 12 of 13 world records to fall since they were launched six weeks ago, prompting world governing body Fina to hold discussions with the manufacturers Speedo.
Fina executive director Cornel Marculescu said one issue that needed reviewing was the thickness of the seamless suit, with concerns emerging that it aided buoyancy.
"We have to review this. But there is no scientific test to say if a suit supports performance," he told the swimnews website.
"The No 1 priority is that all suits are made available to everyone at the moment of launch. Any innovation should be available to everybody."
The swimsuit was tested in the United States, Australia and at Otago University, where a flume was used to analyse water resistance.
David Pease, a biomechanics lecturer who was involved in the testing at Dunedin, said the swimsuits met all regulations which was why Fina had agreed to allow them.
"We did a lot of testing on measuring the buoyancy because that's one of the criteria for any suit that Fina okays," Pease told The Otago Daily Times.
"It can't provide any buoyancy, so we made very sure that was the case."
Pease was one of the very few people outside the Speedo company to see the suit before it was launched in a blaze of publicity last month.
It underwent about 400 hours of testing in the flume and while he expected it would aid swimmers, he was surprised at the instant glut of records.
"Often there tends to be more world records at trials than at the Olympics," he said.
"But the fact everyone is wearing the same suit leads me to believe there is something going on."
The suit's advantage was a seamless design and a compression zone around the torso that helped swimmers to hold their form when they got tired.
Swimming NZ has a sponsorship deal with Arena but chief executive Mike Byrne said that did not mean its swimmers would be barred from using the Speedo suits for the Beijing Olympics in August.
Arena launched its own new suit over the weekend.
Leading the world charge has been Frenchman Alain Bernard, who broke three freestyle records in three days at the European championships at Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
- NZPA
