When does fair become unfair?

There aren't many sports - any that I can come up with off the top of my head, honestly - that haven't been affected by advances in technology.

In baseball, we get double laquered bats and reconstructive surgery.

In football, the helmets are radically safer and the sidelines way more heated.

In tennis, the raquets certainly aren't made of wood any more, and the hardcourts are a lot less hard.

In mixed martial arts, fishhooking has become a whole lot more effective since the addition of the barbed, prosthetic index fingers.

Now the bastardization has come to swimming.

Instead of just sharper razors taking care of that pesky and drag-inducing leg hair, we're now looking at freaky, freaky swimsuits that supposedly makes swimmers go two percent faster.

Unsurprisingly, the swimsuit - which is proprietary of Speedo, meaning only certain swimmers have access to it - is creating a fair bit of controversy, especially when - as was reported on April 10th,

...the Dutch Women's 4 x 200m relay team OBLITERATE a world record that had stood for six years by EIGHT SECONDS, I found it difficult to believe that coaches still feel [this is normal for an Olympic year]. That's right - EIGHT SECONDS. In fact, had it not been for a "relatively slow" final leg by the young Dutch swimmer, the record would have been destroyed by more than ten seconds.

Some other companies are telling their endorsed swimmers that they can go ahead and swim in the Speedo suit - because to choose not to risks everything the swimmers have been working toward for their entire lives in this Olympic year, and others have flatly told their endorsed athletes that wearing the Speedo suit will be a breach of contract resulting in termination of endorsement.

So it comes down to getting paid to swim or actually winning a gold medal, and I'm not sure I'm thrilled with that being an option in sports. Sure, I understand each company's desire for innovation, but at what point does the entire sport's competition become about that innovation rather than about the athletes themselves?

Do Nike shoes provide Renaldo with any significant advantage?

Does Gatorade make that much of a difference for Steve Nash?

Does the Gilette shave make Roger Federer that much cooler?

In each of those cases, probably no. But if they did - as the Speedo suits appear to - would & should those innovations be allowed?

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I also used these articles for the graphics and some more background on this post:

• from Wallpaper.com
• from About.com
• another from ScienceOfSport.com
• and another from ScienceOfSport.com