Today and tomorrow, FINA will meet with swimwear manufacturers and the representatives of the FINA Technical Swimming Committee as well as FINA Athletes, Coaches and Legal Commissions. At the meeting, participants will evaluate performance swimsuit technology and study possible solutions to controversy surrounding “high performance” swimsuits. New approval procedures will also be addressed.

FINA will hear from independent experts and scientific reports regarding suit technology, but will include input from international manufacturers in their deliberation.

TeamUSA.org reported that conclusions resulting from the meeting in Lausanne will be brought to FINA’s Bureau meeting to be held from March 12-14, 2009 in Dubai (UAE).

FINA is looking for the collaboration of all parties involved in the development, regulation, production, sale, and use of swimwear, so that final decisions can be globally accepted and fully understandable by the Swimming worldwide community.

>>Update: Read results of the meeting HERE.

Source: TeamUSA.org

1.) New Water Safety Standard Needed in Order to End Drowning @ Swimming World Magazine
2.) Ian Thorpe at New York Fashion Week @ News.com.au
3.) FINA Water Polo World League Second Round Preliminaries @ Swimming World Magazine
4.) Reformed Leveaux Sprints All Strokes @ SwimNews.com

Nine divers have been selected to the 2009 FINA World Championships Team.

The team members were hand-picked following a four-day selection camp held at Ohio State University. Although the camp included a meet format, results from the meet did not guarantee a spot on the team. Synchronized teams will be selected in May.

Six former Olympians were among the divers chosen. Troy Dumais will dive men’s 3-meter. Chris Colwill will join Dumais on 3-meter and will also compete 1-meter. Christina Loukas will dive 1-meter and 3-meter, and Ariel Rittenhouse will join Loukas on women

DiveMeet.com has released some early results from the “meet” associated with the U.S. World Diving Team Selection Camp. As a reminder, I put “meet” in quotes, because the winner of the events does not automatically receive a spot on the World Team. The format is being used to evaluate the divers’ consistency across several lists, performance (of course), as well as degree of difficulty.

There are some ups and downs to this format. As far as our World Team selection is concerned, we are more likely to get the best, most consistent divers to represent our country. On the other hand, this format makes it much more difficult for an up-and-coming athlete to break into the international scene. In swimming, where team selection is made by time, athletes have an opportunity to make the team by having a single great meet or swim. The down side? If athletes are shaved and tapered to qualify for the team, there’s no guarantee they will be in the same shape for the actual championships.

Highlights:
Christina Loukas, from Indiana University, was in the top 3 for all three 1m lists.
David Boudia, from Purdue University, had the high score for all 4 rounds of men’s 3m with 477.95 coming in the 3rd round.
Ariel Rittenhouse (Trojan Dive Club), and Christina Loukas traded off 1st and 2nd place performances in 3 straight rounds of women’s 3m.
Christopher Colwill, from Georgia Diving Club, was clearly dominant on men’s 1m, winning 2 of the 3 rounds and getting 2nd in the other.
Haley Ishimatsu (age 16, from Trojan Dive Club) won both rounds of women’s platform, while Nick McCrory and Thomas Finchum showed great consistency by staying in the top 3 for both platform lists.

>>More articles in Diving.
>>Diving World Team selection procedures.

Source: DiveMeet.com

DiveMeets.com is hosting a live webcast of the selection camp meets! Check out America’s best divers in action as they try for a spot at the FINA World Championship meet this summer. Webcast HERE at DiveMeets.com (requires Windows Media Player 11). Events start at 9:30AM this week until Wednesday.

>>View related posts

This weekend (February 8th-11th) USA Diving will hold their World Championships Selection Camp at Ohio State University. Divers were personally selected to participate in the event, and received written invitations from USA-D based on their previous performances in Olympic, national, and other international competitions. A list of the selection camp qualifiers can be found HERE from USADiving.org. Selectors will evaluate the divers as they compete in a meet, and reduce the field to 12 divers on 3m and 6 divers on 1m after two lists.

According to USA Diving:

“It is extremely important for all to understand that the selections of those who will continue in the process will not be made on the basis of order of standing by cumulative score after the completion of the first two lists but will be made according to the selection procedures.”

This means, that regardless of who wins the “meet,” the selectors will specifically choose which divers to send to the FINA World Championships in Rome this summer. Team members will be announced Feb. 12th. Synchro pairs will be announced later, and will be evaluated at the Synchronized Diving Assessment next Tuesday, February 10th.

Source: USA Diving

FINA finally released a statement regarding the recent Michael Phelps controversy. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end to news postings about this incident. If I had it my way, we’d just move on and forget about it. It is interesting, however, when people outside of the swimming community come up to me and ask about Michael Phelps and ‘the photo’–I guess, as the saying goes, “there’s no such thing as bad press” when it comes to getting your name around. The real issue is whether that press will lead Michael to further promote swimming in a positive way, or to become a shining beacon of controversy painted across tabloid pages.

The full FINA statement is included below:

After acknowledging the behaviour of Michael Phelps (USA), the greatest Olympian ever and best swimmer in history, FINA would like to reiterate its confidence and admiration for a young champion that publicly apologised for his act.

Following his unprecedented eight gold medals in a single edition of the Olympic Games, Michael Phelps definitively became a model for youth worldwide. His achievements, winning attitude and respect for his opponents are values that will remain in the history of sport.

As a citizen, Michael Phelps displayed inappropriate behaviour, but his sincere regret and the promise that such a situation will not happen again are sufficient guarantees that this great star will continue generating respect and appreciation to all fans of our sport around the globe.

FINA certainly counts on Michael Phelps to highlight the next editions of the FINA World Championships and other prestigious swimming competitions in the future.

Source: FINA.org