INDIANAPOLIS -- Michael Phelps could sense the question coming long before it was asked.
After all, new, high-tech swimsuits and their legality in competition have been the talk of the swimming world since the Beijing Olympics. They're the main topic of conversation for the 800 swimmers at the U.S. nationals, which begin today at the Indiana University Natatorium. World records are falling, and FINA, the sport's governing body, has said that virtually every suit on the market will be legal, at least until 2010, when officials plan to reassess suit standards. As a result, swimmers from around the globe have been scrambling into new suits, desperate to make sure they won't be left behind in someone else's technological wake.
Most swimmers, though, don't get paid millions of dollars to wear a certain brand of suit, as Phelps does. So when someone did finally ask him about his decision to continue wearing a Speedo LZR Racer, and whether he felt as if he would be competing with a handicap this week, Phelps had to repeat the question aloud, slowly, just to wrap his head around the idea.
"Will I be competing with a handicap?" Phelps said, smiling and then pausing while weighing his answer. "Here is what I have to say to all your swimsuit questions: I've worn Speedo my whole life. And that's what I'm wearing this week."
Phelps is probably fast enough that it shouldn't matter what suit he wears. Even if he did want to experiment with one of the new suits generating so much buzz - like the Arena X-Glide or Jaked 01, which have helped European swimmers break several world records recently - his contract with Speedo would certainly prohibit it.
But the rest of the swimming world has been obsessing over the dilemma of what to wear, almost like starlets agonizing about which red-carpet outfit to choose for the Oscars. The consequences, however, are probably more severe. It could mean the difference between going to the FINA world championships in Rome this month and staying home.
Questions about just how much a swimsuit's technology should factor into a swimmer's performance are nothing new. They arose during the Beijing Games when nearly every world record was broken, most of those by athletes wearing the LZR Racer, a suit designed with the help of NASA to reduce drag and improve oxygen intake.
