Aussie great lashes FINA over record-breaking swimsuits

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian Olympic swimming great Shane Gould has slammed governing body FINA for what she says is its contradiction over allowing swimmers to wear space-age swimsuits at next month's Beijing Games.

Gould, 51, who won three gold medals all in world record time at the 1972 Munich Games, said the new high-tech suits are a performance-enhancing device and fly in the face of FINA's own rules.

"These new swimsuits are a performance-enhancing device and it's changed the sport forever," Gould told the Sun-Herald newspaper Sunday, saying there had been an "evolution happening in swimsuits."

Speedo's new LZR Racer has taken swimming by storm, playing a role in 44 of 48 short- and long-course records set this year.

But FINA's blessing of the...