Here's something I managed to find about the suits. It seems there is some unfair advantage to new suits, for example, coming out although not as bad as I feared it might be:
High-Tech Swimsuits Approved by Olympic Committee Promise to Even the Competition | Gadget Lab from Wired.com
Quote:
When Speedo-sponsored athletes began setting an inordinate number of records immediately after using the new suit, several rival companies (as well as the national delegations they sponsor) protested that the tech had gone too far and the competition had become unfair.
At that point, only one other company (TYR) had managed to create a suit with similar breakthroughs. If the other companies’ suit designs had not been accepted, Olympians would have faced a tough choice: Either swim with a LZR Racer and face a substantial fine (about $5K), or swim with your own and face the prospect of losing the race because of the competition’s substantially better equipment.
Still, the accusations against Speedo’s potential illegal maneuverings are not going away. A couple of weeks ago, TYR sued Speedo and accused the company of conspiring with the U.S.
Olympic team to suppress the competition and force all competitors to wear their suits. This, of course, would have looked good for Speedo -- millions of eyeballs will be watching the games and many of them will end up buying the gear the athletes use.
Because the other manufacturers took almost three months to catch up to the Speedo suits, the whole issue may still affect the results of the races. The athletes that were not sponsored by Speedo started to use the high-tech prototypes of the competitors only recently.
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