The Japanese Swimming Federation has decided to allow its swimmers to wear Speedo’s LZR Racer at the Beijing Olympics. “In order to get the best results in Beijing, we took into account the opinions of the athletes and the coaches,” JSF vice chairman Kazuo Sano said Tuesday.
Source: iht.com
Two days after wearing a T-shirt stating “I am the swimmer”, in protest against the Japanese Swimming Federation restricting Japanese swimmers to use only Mizuno, Descente or Asics swim suits, Kosuke Kitajima breaks the 200 meter breaststroke world record, wearing a Speedo LZR Racer at the Japan Open. The new world record is 2:07.51, beating the 2:08.50 set by Brendan Hansen at the 2006 Pan Pacific Championships.
Source: SwimInfo
The Japanese Swimming Federation gave the three Japanese sportswear companies until May 30 to come up with an outfit comparable to the LZR Racer, which they then have unveiled by now. Asics and Descente have used a new “world’s fastest swimwear material” called Biorubber Swim-SCS Fabric and polyurethane, while Mizuno say they have a new material tightening the swimmer’s body.
Source: AFP
Their current contract prohibits swimmers wearing anything but Mizuna, Asics and Descente (an Arena brand); but now the Japanese considers allowing also Speedo LZR, if not the three contracted companies improve each of their current models to be equally as good as the new Speedo swimwear by May 30.
Source: SwimInfo