BROOKE'S LOOK AT ROMA 09 DAY EIGHT
August 3: Aussie Telstra Dolphins collect 16 medals at the FINA World Swimming Championships in Rome. Brooke Hanson reports...
The 2009 FINA World Swimming Championships will be a swim meet that no one will ever forget.
A championships where individual performances have been overshadowed by swimsuits.
The super swimsuits have been the major highlight of the past eight days, as have the 43 world records that came with the high-technology swimwear.
The Australian swimming team broke three of the 43 world records and finished the championships with a total medal tally of 16 medals; three gold, four silver and nine bronze.
Australia's three newest world champions are Brenton Rickard (100m breaststroke), Jessicah Schipper (200m butterfly) and Marieke Guehrer (50m butterfly).
The four silver medallists are Jessicah Schipper (100m butterfly), Matthew Targett (50m butterfly), Stephanie Rice (200m individual medley) and the 4x100 women's medley relay.
The nine bronzed Aussies include Libby Trickett (100m freestyle), Emily Seebohm (100m backstroke), Christian Sprenger (200m breaststroke), Cate Campbell (50m freestyle), Sarah Katsoulis (50m breaststroke), Stephanie Rice (400m individual medley), 4x100 men's medley relay, 4x200 men's freestyle relay and the 4x100 women's freestyle relay.
Although the championships were surrounded by the controversy of the supersuits, Australia's only male gold medallist Brenton Rickard summed it up perfectly.
"It's the swimmers who win races not the swimsuits," said Rickard.
He is right; the athlete who puts the best race together, attacks and fights to the finish will beat their competitors and win the race.
A great example of this was Marieke Guehrer's swim in the 50m butterfly. Guehrer beat Sweden's Therese Alshammar, who had broken the world record the previous night.
Put the suits aside and it was the individual who won the gold medal in the final, not the suit. Guehrer didn't beat the world record but she won the world championship, which is what every swimmer is there to do.
Rickard, Guehrer and Schipper are Australia's gold medallists from Rome and their attitude to competition and how they race will not change no matter what swimsuit they wear.
World swimming will never be the same with entirely new swimsuit rulings starting a new era of swimming in January 2010.
FINA Bureau's new position on suits states:
* The material used for swimsuits can be only ‘Textile Fabric(s)'.
* Male swimsuits shall not extend above the naval or below the knee.
* Women's suits shall not cover the neck or extend past the shoulder nor shall they extend below the knee.
* No zippers or other fastening systems are allowed.
It's hard to believe that the Speedo fast skin suit with a zip that thousands of swimmers, including Grant Hackett, Libby Trickett and myself, raced in since 2000 has been banished along with the new generation polyurethane supersuits of 2008 and 2009.
The famous long sleeve Adidas swim suit of Ian Thorpe has also been banned as FINA finally puts a ruling on what design and materials can be used in competition.
FINA has had no choice but to put the strict rules into place but what happens to the past decade of amazing swims, medals, records and rankings?
Who knows?
A variety of swimsuits have been worn since the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and it looks like these outstanding performances will be always tainted by the suits.
I believe the sport has no choice but to be positive about moving forward and try to once again gain the respect of its athletes and spectators.
In the end the sport of swimming is about the swimmers and it will be great to concentrate on individual performances and not suits or records next year.
With Australian team sponsor Speedo providing the textile swim suits, there is no doubt the Aussie team will be racing in the world's fastest swim suits at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Championships.
Australia's head coach Alan Thompson has done a great job in leading the Telstra dolphins through the troubled waters of 2009.
Thompson and his team should be proud of their 16 medals in Rome and I'm certain they will be back bigger and better than ever next year.
I look forward to seeing which individuals shine beyond the suit wars of 2009.
For the record the Roma 09 swimsuit war tally for individual world records is:
Arena 15
Jaked 14
Adidas 5
Speedo 4
Bring on January 1, 2010.