31/03/00
Design Innovation: Good or Bad For Sport?
Summary:
Australian swimming is split over whether new full-body swimsuits are legitimate and ethical for swimmers to compete in. The Australian Olympic Committee has taken the issue to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. AOC lawyer SIMON ROFE explains why. Swim coach JOHN CAREW expresses his concerns, and TIM LEES, from one of the companies manufacturing these suits, explains how they work.
And NADINE GELBERG, one of the authors of "Design for Sport", considers the challenges and threats that new technologies often present to various sports, and how sports authorities should address these issues.
Details or Transcript:
THEME
Amanda Smith: On The Sports Factor this morning, the big bathers controversy: the fuss in Australian swimming over the new full-body swimsuits.
This debate over the latest design in swimsuits, and whether they’re legal and ethical for swimmers to race in, is part of a wider issue that many sports are facing. Because while every athlete wants access to the latest high-tech gear and equipment, just about every major new design presents a problem, in fact, sports often have a very ambiguous relationship with design innovation.
Nadine Gelberg: It’s an ambiguous relationship, because while sport does embrace innovation and it is an industry, it also is unique in the sense that sport needs to preserve athletic challenge. It needs to protect the integrity of the game and tradition in a way that other industries do not.
Amanda Smith: That’s Nadine Gelberg, one of the authors of a book called ‘Design for Sport’, and who we’ll hear more from later in The Sports Factor.
First though, to the specific concerns over the full-body swimsuit. The Australian Olympic Committee has gone to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a ruling on the legality, or otherwise, of these swimsuits. Simon Rofe is the lawyer who’s running the case for the AOC. But what is the Australian Olympic Committee’s problem? After all, FINA, the International Swimming Federation, has approved these swimsuits for competition.
Simon Rofe: FINA has a rule that says that no swimmer can use or wear a device that aids speed, buoyancy or endurance. The problem we’ve got is that all the evidence to hand of these swimsuits aid speed and endurance, they may or may not aid buoyancy as well. So we believe that there could well be a breach of FINA’s own rule. Now FINA has purported the approve the bodysuits and they did that late ’99, about October. But we’ve found nothing in FINA’s rules that would empower FINA to give that approval, so we have concerns whether that approval is valid or not.
So when we turn to the swimmers, our concern is that a swimmer who has achieved a qualifying time or achieved a world record result, or a medal performance, could have those performances challenged on the grounds that their bodysuits that they’ve worn have breached FINA’s own rule.
Amanda Smith: So, for example, say if Ian Thorpe or Susie O’Neill or Michael Klim win an event at the Sydney Games in these bodysuits, that opens up the possibility that a losing swimmer may challenge the legitimacy of that win by invoking that FINA rule?
Simon Rofe: Exactly, Amanda. And it’s important to understand that whilst FINA interprets its own rules at first instance, that doesn’t exclude the jurisdiction of the courts. At the Olympic Games, the Court of Arbitration for Sport is the final arbiter on all disputes arising during the Games. So it will be the Court of Arbitration for Sport, or CAS, as it’s commonly known, that will make the final decision.
But the problem is a little bit wider than that, in that if FINA has purported to rule through usually its technical committee in respect of a meet, that these suits are valid and that therefore any protest lodged on the basis of the bodysuits should be thrown out, there is nothing to stop a swimmer who has lost that challenge from taking the matter to the ordinary courts on the grounds that FINA has acted outside its rules and has made an error of law.
Amanda Smith: Now over the past few years, indeed at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, a number of swimmers have been competing in those neck-to-knee swimsuits, which to my knowledge haven’t been particularly controversial. What’s the difference between those neck-to-knee suits and these newer, full-body ones, apart from a few extra centimetres of fabric, I guess?
Simon Rofe: Well the Atlanta bodysuits were basically Aquablade suits. In short, there’s most probably no difference between them. The issue has just arisen for us because as most of your listeners will be aware, recently Ian Thorpe approached the AOC asking for permission to wear his sponsor’s bodysuit in lieu of that provided by Speedo, which is the supplier to the Australian Olympic team. The grounds upon which Ian asked to be able to wear his own sponsor’s suit was that it was technical equipment, or in the terms of the words used in the Olympic Charter, ‘Specialised equipment which has a material effect upon the performance of an athlete’. Now quite frankly, we were not aware of the performance enhancing effects of these suits until a presentation was given to the AOC by the manufacturers. And it was then, (and this is only a matter of weeks ago) for the first time, that we realised the extent of these performance enhancing effects, and the possible breach of FINA’s rules. So you’re correct in saying that the very problem we’re now facing could be raised and go back to just before the Atlanta Games.
Amanda Smith: So that really raises the question of what a swimmer wears, is it regarded as apparel or equipment, and that is a relevant distinction, yes?
Simon Rofe: Well this is FINA’s line. Remember that FINA’s rule talks of a device. Now when you look at the dictionary for the definition of a device, and remembering that FINA’s rules are written in both English and French, but the English version is the prevailing version, a device in the Oxford Dictionary is defined as ‘a thing designed for a particular function or purpose.’ Now that’s a fairly broad definition, and a swimsuit would appear to come, at least in my interpretation, within the definition of device, because it’s designed for the functional purpose of swimming and in particular swimming faster.
Amanda Smith: Well if the Court of Arbitration for Sport does decide that the bodysuits are in contravention of FINA’s rule about swimmers not wearing anything that aids speed or buoyancy or endurance, what will happen then?
Simon Rofe: Well what we would be saying, and we’ve already said this to FINA, is that in those circumstances FINA should urgently amend its rules. If it is going to allow bodysuits to be worn, then it should amend its rules to clearly state that, and to state any conditions that might attach to them. If FINA says it’s not going to allow the bodysuits, then it’s got to in some way address all the performances over the last four years or so that have been achieved in these suits.
Amanda Smith: So that means going back to the Atlanta Olympics also, yes?
Simon Rofe: Yes, it means basically a retrospective approval.
Amanda Smith: Will the Australian Olympic Committee prohibit swimmers from wearing the full bodysuits?
Simon Rofe: Amanda, it’s not our role to prohibit. We’re in this solely to give some certainty to athletes, to the swimmers. If we have achieved certainty through an opinion of CAS, then we will advise all our swimmers of that position, and leave the choice to them, so that they will be able to make a decision in the knowledge of whatever CAS has ruled. If CAS rules that the bodysuits are valid, then the swimmers know that they can rely on that and they can go forward. If CAS rules that they are invalid, then the swimmers know that they wear these bodysuits at their own risk.
Amanda Smith: Simon Rofe, lawyer for the Australian Olympic Committee.
Well, while the swimming scene awaits a decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Australian swimmers and coaches are divided in their own opinions about the benefits, legality, and ethics of the bodysuits. 1500 metres world champion Kieren Perkins has suggested that swimming should be about athletes racing each other, not scientists; and that if the bodysuits are performance aids, then they’re compromising the integrity of the sport.
For The Sports Factor, Shannon Breen spoke with Kieren Perkins’ coach, John Carew, about whether he also feels that the advantages offered by the new swimsuits change the nature of the sport.
John Carew: One of the things that concerns me is the fact that the records that are broken without the suit, and then they’re breaking these records with the suit; I don’t think that’s fair, because there’s no doubt they’re an advantage. To what extent I can’t tell you because I don’t have the scientific knowledge of that. But they’re definitely an advantage. They get faster, they can swim faster, and it helps slow down fatigue because it holds the body together.
Shannon Breen: So is the issue access, that not every swimmer has access to this suit? Or do you think that this kind of science shouldn’t be introduced into the sport at all?
John Carew: Well it all depends which way you look at that whether it should be introduced into the sport. If you want faster swimming, well then you introduce it into the sport, but they will have to be made available to everybody, there won’t be just some have it and some don’t. That is the case at the moment, but that won’t be the case when the Olympics come along if they’re going to be allowed to use them. But as I said, I don’t think it’s fair to compare the records with somebody who uses the suit with somebody who doesn’t use the suit, because there’s no doubt that it cuts down on drag, it gives better flotation, and it cuts down on fatigue. So how you can compare records broken with the suit and without, I don’t think that’s fair at all.
Shannon Breen: Keiren Perkins has been quoted as saying he doesn’t think it’s good to turn the sport over to scientists, that it should be about athletes doing their best in I guess a natural sort of environment. What’s your view of that?
John Carew: Oh well, sport is a mixture now of science and athleticism, you have to have that today. This is why we’re swimming so fast, with the help of science in our diet and all sorts of things, fitness. But there is a certain amount of art in being a coach, and I don’t care what science they have, if you don’t have that art, well then you’re not going to produce the swimmers. Science will take you so far, and art will take you a little bit further.
Shannon Breen: And the secret to your success?
John Carew: A little bit of art (laughs) … and with the help of some science.
Amanda Smith: John Carew, one of Australia’s most successful swim coaches, at the University of Queensland pool in Brisbane, where he trains Kieren Perkins.
Well, just what is the science of these controversial full-body swimsuits? What’s the design theory and technology behind them? Tim Lees is from Speedo Australia, one of the manufacturers of the suits.
Tim Lees: Well, basically, the fast suit is designed to harness the natural talent and technique of the swimmer. Its construction enables us to, if you like, and this gets a little technical, but pull together the natural pulling power of the upper body and the kicking motion of the legs into the centre of the body, into the trunk, and in that way aid the athlete to maximise their performance.
Amanda Smith: What are they made from?
Tim Lees: Fastskin is a fabric that’s unique to Speedo. We worked in very close collaboration with Mizuno, a company in Japan that’s undoubtedly the leading fabric developer in the world. It involves a unique yarn put together in a very specialised way that results in there being very fine but specifically measured and constructed grooves in the suit, which themselves create, if you like, a sort of a vertical vortex in the water. Basically, in layman’s language, what it’s doing is creating a very, very small separation between the surface of the fabric and the water that’s flowing over it, and thereby reducing drag.
Amanda Smith: Well apart from the small number of swimmers who’ve been trialling these suits to date, not many people have had a chance to see them up close. At a distance they look kind of like wetsuits, steamers, but what do they look and feel like up close?
Tim Lees: Well I think the most remarkable thing, when you get up really close to them and feel them, is they do have, as we’ve said, a feel that’s somewhat similar to a sharkskin. They’re not smooth, they are very, very close fitting, we in fact measured upwards of 500 swimmers internationally with a fairly unique 3D measuring device that gave us very, very precise dimensions of the athletes’ bodies, and that enabled us, in conjunction with the fabrication of the swimsuits, which involves about 32 panels, compared to the traditional 2-panel swimsuit, enabled us to make a very, very tight fitting suit, so when you get up close, the thing you notice is of course the surface texture, if you like, of the swimsuit, and that it fits very, very snugly to the body.
Amanda Smith: Now FINA, the International Swimming Federation, has approved the use of these bodysuits for competition, provided that they’re available to every competitor. Are there issues of access and availability of these suits for all swimmers who want to use them?
Tim Lees: No there aren’t. In the early days there was a concern, and perhaps a valid concern by a lot of parties, particularly the swimmers themselves. Speedo’s come out and very clearly and regularly stated that these suits will be available to all the swimmers in the Shadow Squad in Australia. There’s about 160 athletes in that Shadow Squad, and it’s from that 160 that the team for 2000 will eventually be picked, and made up of about 50, 55 swimmers. So Speedo’s working very hard to ensure that every athlete that’s even trialling for our Olympic team will be on a level playing field, and that’s why we’re giving suits, our Fastskin suits, to every member of the Shadow Squad.
Amanda Smith: What about their availability to swimmers around the world, not just Australian swimmers, and I’m thinking especially of those from less affluent countries.
Tim Lees: Well the President of Speedo International, Mr Joe Fields, I think overnight has clarified once again that Speedo International is making I think 6,000 Fastskin suits to provide to all those countries. I’ve heard that there’s about 650, maybe 700 athletes in the Olympics themselves, so that Speedo is making about 6,000 suits is really ensuring that there really shouldn’t be anybody who wishes to gain access to the Fastskin suit, that’s compromised in any way.
Amanda Smith: Now as you know, Tim, the Australian Olympic Committee has asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a ruling on the legality of these suits. Have other Olympic Committees around the world expressed those sorts of concerns in relation to a particular rule of FINA that the Australian Olympic Committee has?
Tim Lees: I believe not. Our inquiries through our own international organisation and through Australian swimming locally who were over in Athens quite recently for the World Short Course Meet, indicate that there’s no other Federation or international federation who is making this sort of approach to FINA, and we were a little surprised that it was coming from the AOC, but I think we understand John Coates’ concern. He wants to make sure all the bases are covered, and ensure that our Games run smoothly in September. So whatever we can do to help that of course we’ll do. But FINA is the world governing body for aquatic sports, they’re based in Lausanne, they have checked out these suits very carefully, they’ve confirmed that they’re entirely legal and reiterated that on a number of occasions, including to the AOC.
Amanda Smith: What’s your response though to some of the critical comments that have been made about these suits, and I’m thinking about comments made by the swimmer, Keiren Perkins, who said that it’s technology taking over swimming?
Tim Lees: Well I think Amanda, you know, we’re seeing technology evolving, aren’t we? in a number of sports, not just swimming. I guess you could almost say that swimming is one of the last cabs off the rank in that regard. We’ve seen tennis go from wooden racquets to graphite, and we’ve seen running shoes develop and we’ve seen even the track and field surfaces themselves develop, and the same thing in yachting, with sails, and so on. So the process of technical evolution is just an ongoing process and I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end yet. Most of the athletes, particularly the younger ones I think, seem to embrace this new technology very, very enthusiastically, and I’m sure we’ll be sitting here in five or ten years’ time looking at the development then, and perhaps feeling that Fastskin was a bit archaic by that time. So it really just is an ongoing process.
Amanda Smith: Although it does seem to raise some grey areas around what is and isn’t legitimate performance enhancement in sport because while you’re talking about these full bodysuits on a kind of evolutionary scale, they are a pretty radical departure from the standard Lycra bathers, aren’t they?
Tim Lees: Well they sure are. But at the end of the day it really is the athlete that makes the difference, and that athlete’s personal performance that is the determining factor, and our suit can’t really swim very far by itself, it requires to be fitted around an athlete and all the Fastskin suit does really, and it does it very, very well I think, as I say, is harness those elements that make up the individual’s composition in terms of talent and technique, and help them maximise their performance.
Amanda Smith: Tim Lees, from Speedo Australia.
Well, designers and manufacturers do get excited about the performance enhancing possibilities of new gear and equipment in sport. But as is apparent from this debate over the swimsuits, design innovation can, and often has, threatened to change sport from being a test of human skill, to a test of technological skill.
After all, the International Swimming Federation’s rule about a swimmer not being allowed to wear or use anything that aids speed, endurance or buoyancy is there to protect the fundamental athletic integrity of the sport.
But according to Nadine Gelberg, who’s the Director of Sports Research for a company called Harris Interactive, in the United States, new technologies are increasingly presenting problems for various sports, in a way that doesn’t apply in other spheres.
Nadine Gelberg: In other businesses and industries, you could accomplish the job as efficiently as possible; it doesn’t matter how you clean the kitchen floor as long as the kitchen floor is clean. For example, you can vacuum it, you can sweep it, you can mop it, you can get on your hands and knees with a sponge and clean it, as long as the kitchen floor becomes clean. But in sport, the ‘how’ is just as important as the end result; how you get from the start line to the finish line is as important. In a rowing shell, for example, it would defeat the whole challenge, the purpose of the sport, to put a motor on the back.
Amanda Smith: Well perhaps can you give me an example or two of challenges or difficulties that design innovations have presented for particular sports?
Nadine Gelberg: Sure. In golf, for example, an asymmetrically dimpled ball was a ball that had shallower dimples on the poles than on the circumference, and this ball was designed to reduce hooks and slices.
Amanda Smith: This was the Polara golf ball?
Nadine Gelberg: The Polara golf ball. The United States Golf Association decided that this ball compromised the integrity of the game and reduced the skill necessary to participate in the sport. So they banned this ball, that was nicknamed ‘The Happy Non-Hooker’!
Amanda Smith: It’s a fine line I guess, though. And one that might in fact change over time, between what’s regarded as an unfair new design and what sometimes becomes a useful or acceptable new design, yes?
Nadine Gelberg: Sport has a dynamic relationship with society, and as societal interests change, so must sport. It is part of society as well as a reflection of society, and its relationship with technology does need to change. But as I would advocate, sport needs to protect the essential elements, the essential challenge. So in tennis for example, it needs to protect the ability to hit a top spin shot, it needs to limit the innovations that provide the ball with more rotations per second, than other innovations would. So while the relationship with technology will change over time, there needs to be certain protections of the essential skills that should not or will not change over time. Golf is a test of hitting accuracy, driving distance and putting precision. Those are skills that will not change over time, and need to be protected even if other sorts of technologies do change, increased viewer interest, increased participation.
Amanda Smith: Now you mentioned there tennis, and I find it fascinating that there were no restrictions or rules on tennis racquets for hundreds of years, from the 16th century until 1978. Why in 1978 did there need to be rules and restrictions brought in on tennis racquets, where there’d been none before?
Nadine Gelberg: Well it is interesting. There were no restrictions on tennis racquets, you could play with absolutely anything; a tennis racquet was defined as ‘the implement used to hit the ball’, which meant you could use a broom, you could use a bottle, anything could hit the ball, that was defined as a tennis racquet. But in 1977 an ingenious engineer came up with a new stringing system that sent the established tennis elite into an uproar. It created basically an immediate crisis on the professional tour, this ‘spaghetti stringing system’. What is was, was three planes of non-intersecting string, with a plastic coating on the outside of the strings. And it held the ball on the strings longer, allowing athletes to impart greater topspin on the ball than they would with a normal topspin stroke. And unlike other technology, such as the Prince tennis racquet, that developed slowly over time, that entered through the recreational market, that required modifications to be an advantageous tool to the professional athlete, this stringing system created huge upsets on the professional tour; 200th ranked players were beating 4th seeded players.
Amanda Smith: Well to what degree have design innovations forced the governing bodies of various sports to have to set up programs to test and regulate new technology?
Nadine Gelberg: I think this is a brand new area. With the exception of a few sports organisations, most sports organisations are just beginning to deal with these technological issues. They had previously regulated technologies in response to crises like the ‘spaghetti string’ crisis, and implemented ad hoc rules based on design standards: how the technology looks, as opposed to how the technology performs. But with the development of new materials, with the money that’s involved in sports, engineers are creating sports equipment and technologies that are dramatically changing performance; they’re changing the nature of the game. The skills necessary to succeed in the sport, the injuries associated with the sport and the cost of participation, and this is an area new, but on the forefront, for sports organisations to deal.
Amanda Smith: How can they possibly predict though, what startling new materials or designs some clever inventor might be coming up with?
Nadine Gelberg: They can’t. But what I would propose is that they do not have to predict what the future might hold. What the sports organisations need to do is to determine what skills and particular traditions are essential to the sport, and then protect those with performance standards. So if driving distance is an essential skill of golf, then limit the distance that the ball can travel by setting an overall distance standard. This is exactly what the United States Golf Association has done. But when faced with the Polara golf ball that reduced hooks and slices, they returned to a design standard prohibiting asymmetrically dimpled balls. What they could have done is prohibited any innovation. Any ball design that when landing closer to the centre line when hit with a certain degree of hook or slice, would be prohibited.
In tennis, they banned the spaghetti stringing system by banning double-strung systems and protrusions on the racquet when they could ban any innovation that would impart greater rotations per second on the ball hit with a regular topspin stroke, then a set standard. With these types of performance standards, the sports organisations can protect the integrity of the sport, the essential skills necessary, athletic challenge and sporting tradition, without having to anticipate every new possible design and material.
Amanda Smith: So what you’re talking about Nadine, in summary I guess, is how sports are constantly trying to maintain this balance between their traditions and test of human skill that’s involved, and technological innovation on the other hand. But there must always be external forces and vested interests from the manufacturers, from the media maybe, from players themselves, that make that balancing act a delicate and controversial one?
Nadine Gelberg: Absolutely. Sports is an industry, sports is a business; and sport needs the media, fan interest and participants. It is a balancing act for the sports organisations to encourage the growth of the sport, to democratise the sport while protecting those essential skills and traditions of the sport. That is why I think that performance standards are so essential in sport, in that they protect what is crucial to the game, what is at the core of sport, what is this element of sport integrity, while allowing maximum innovation in other areas, while allowing maximum innovation to meet the needs of the different athletes, meet the needs of the manufacturers and to meet the needs of the spectators, fans and media.
Amanda Smith: Nadine Gelberg, who’s one of the contributors to a book called ‘Design for Sport’. And Nadine was speaking to me there from Rochester, in New York State in the United States.
And that brings us to the end of The Sports Factor for this week. Michael Shirrefs is the Producer, and I’m Amanda Smith. Thanks for your company, hope you’ll join me again next Friday.
THEME
Guests on this program:
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Simon Rofe Australian Olympic Committee lawyer |
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John Carew Australian swimming coach (for Kieren Perkins et al) |
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Tim Lees Marketing Director for Speedo Australia |
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Nadine Gelberg Director of Sports Research with Harris Interactive market research company in Rochester, New York State and author of 'Tradition, Talent and Technology: The Ambiguous Relationship Between Sports and Innovation' from the book 'Design For Sport', Akiko Busch ed. |
Publications:
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Design For Sport Author: various, Akiko Busch (Editor) Price: $39.95 (Aus) Publisher: Thames and Hudson, London, 1998 ISBN 0-500-28061-4 |
Presenter:
Amanda Smith
Producer:
Michael Shirrefs
©1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation