Year of pot pipes and polyurethane

Polyurethane and a much-publicised pot pipe saw swimming in turbulent waters in 2009.

Olympic superstar Michael Phelps had barely had time to towel off after his 2008 exploits in Beijing's Water Cube before he found himself the subject of less welcome publicity, when Britain's News of the World published a photo of the 14-time Olympic gold medallist with his face pressed to a marijuana pipe.

The tabloid moment earned Phelps a spate of sponsor tut-tutting and a three-month ban from USA Swimming.

When he returned in May, the 24-year-old American wasn't the all-conquering figure of 2008, but he rebounded strongly enough to produce the most scintillating swim of the year with his triumph in the 100m butterfly at the World Championships in Rome.

Phelps smashed the 50-second barrier in the event with a world record of 49.82, and handed Serbian Milorad Cavic a bigger defeat than the one he suffered by a fingertip at the Beijing Olympics.

Even with the advantage of a latest-generation polyurethane super-suit, Cavic couldn't turn the tables on Phelps, as the American again showed his ability to rise to the big occasion.

The victory, along with a 200m butterfly world record, balanced the scales somewhat for Phelps, whose run of 10 straight individual victories in world and Olympic competition had ended early at Rome when Germany's Paul Biedermann seized his world record in the 200m freestyle.

Biedermann also eclipsed Australian great Ian Thorpe's iconic world record in the 400m free - another performance that ratcheted up the tension over the high-tech bodysuits and FINA's ineffectual efforts to deal with them in 2009.

The wave of technological advancement started with 2008's Speedo LZR Racer, a seamless part-polyurethane suit designed with the help of NASA.

It came in a variety of styles, from more traditional navel to knee suits for men to full body suits and contributed to a bumper crop of world records at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Even more controversial suits came in its wake, including part-polyurethane suits by Arena and the all-polyurethane Jaked 01.

FINA dithered, first banning and then approving some of the suits. Amid the confusion several apparent world records went unratified because of what the swimmer was wearing.

Swimmers also had to wrestle with whether to seek out a competitive edge in a suit made by a rival sponsor, and were subjected to suit inspections prior to races to make sure their equipment conformed to the changing rules.

Biedermann cheerfully admitted his high-tech suit contributed priceless fractions of a second. But even he said he was looking forward to the technological rollback in 2010, when the sport would "go back to the real swimming."

By the time the European short course championships ended in Istanbul in December, the controversial costumes had been credited with contributing to 245 world records since February of 2008 - 137 in 2009.

It remains to be seen if some of the world beaters who emerged in the high-tech suit era will remain so. An even bigger question is how swimming can reconcile the re-written record book with the larger history of the sport.

Swimmers themselves, however, were simply looking forward to a return to more straightforward racing.

"I think this has been a dark year but I think the future looks great," said Australia's Andrew Lauterstein.

"It goes back to the fastest swimmer wins. I think it will change the image of the sport. With the suits everyone looked like robots and no one could see the hard work we did to get up and race fast.

"Now we will be able to see who is fit and who is not fit."

by Rebecca Bryan, AFP