“ To be honest I personally felt the battle was lost around the turn of the century when the olympic swimmers adopted fast skin suits.
While elite swimmers were still wearing them they still had the status of "proper swimwear" for anyone involved in water sports.”
Agree! I remember a Speedo bus stop poster in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics featuring Gary Hall Jr. in the smallest tightest Speedo brief I’d ever seen. Four years later, no Olympians competed in briefs because the new suits trapped air, giving anyone wearing one an advantage. Skin is honest - those tech suits weren’t. Only after they allowed every record in the book to be broken were they banned.
Tech suits are designed for competition only and briefs have always had their place for daily back-&-forth practices. Speedo usage as practice suits goes up and down over the years. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but it seems more high school swimmers are wearing them for practice recently.
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