I AM not the biggest swimming fan, but the saga of the high-tech swimsuits has got me hooked.

 

That’s why one of the first dates I have ringed in my new 2009 diary is March 12.

 

This is when, as reported by insidethegames, the decision-making bureau of FINA, the sport’s world governing body, is scheduled to gather in Dubai to decide on “appropriate action” regarding swimwear approval procedures.

 

The issue of sport and innovation/new technology is as old as the hills - take the 18th century cricketer who tried to use a bat as wide as the wicket, hence triggering a change in the laws of the game.

 

Yet, for my money, the subject remains endlessly fascinating.

 

A variety of factors have impelled technological change in sport over the years.

 

These include the desire to ensure that measurements are exact and justice is done; quality control/standardisation; cost control; the profit motive; and, most obviously, the obsession of any ambitious athlete with improving performance.

 

The trouble is - as with the introduction of animal species to a new geographic region – innovation may sometimes impoverish a sport as much as it enriches it.

 

That monstrous 18th-century cricket bat was one example of this.

 

So, some might argue, are graphite tennis racquets and golf club and ball designs that enable players to attain once unimaginable distances off the tee.

 

Victim of own success

 

The question is - does the new generation of high-tech swimsuits fall into this same category of innovations whose drawbacks could be said to outweigh their benefits?

 

As so often with sporting innovations, the new suits are partly a victim of their own apparent success.

 

OK, there are probably a number of factors explaining the ability of today’s top swimmers to propel themselves through the water so much faster than even their recent predecessors.

 

Pool design, technique and training innovations and good old-fashioned competitive spirit all spring to mind.

 

But the plain fact is that since Speedo's LZR Racer suit - designed and tested with the help of NASA - was made available last February, no fewer than 108 world records have been set.

 

You might think this was all to the good.

 

After all, swimming, not being intrinsically all that spectacular a sport, relies on context to sustain interest: Will Michael Phelps get his eighth gold medal? Is Rebecca Adlington on world record schedule? - that sort of thing.

 

This is especially the case in longer events when the winner is often already well ahead a long way from home.

 

The problem with the present situation is that there have been so many recent world records that the currency has become devalued.

 

Order needs to be restored

 

One of the things that I think FINA needs to focus on in March is, accordingly, restoring a sense of proportion: a world record should be the reward for a truly outstanding swim, not an almost daily phenomenon - several times a day when a major championship is on.

 

Happily for the governing body, the world record glut should be largely self-correcting.

 

Once top competitors have all learnt how to get the very best out of the new suits, and once new world marks have been established by high tech-aided swimmers in just about every event, the flood of records should slow quite dramatically.

 

If, that is, the new suits are indeed the prime cause of what we have been witnessing.

 

For this reason, and because of the large commercial stakes that are doubtless in play, my hunch is that FINA might not actually take very much in the way of corrective action - although a limit of one swimsuit per swimmer would be no bad thing!

 

As an instinctive traditionalist when it comes to sport, part of me feels this would be a pity.

 

I like to be able to make meaningful statistical comparisons between athletes from different eras.

 

Part of cricket’s great charm, in my view, is that the Test Match batting average of the late Sir Don Bradman still marks him out instantly and indisputably as the greatest batsman who ever played the game 60 years after his last international.

 

But turning the clock back in swimming would mean unpicking years of advances in pool as well as costume design.

 

Not even I would wish nylon swimsuits back onto today’s competitors for the sake of an easier comparison between their efforts and those of Mark Spitz and his contemporaries.

 

I guess I will just have to sublimate my traditionalist yearnings in the open-water event, which reappeared on the Olympic programme this summer in Beijing, 112 years after competitors took to the Bay of Zea in the Athens Games of 1896.

 

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the recent Beijing Olympics