Swimsuit row overshadows Worlds

Fina World Championships
Date: 17 July-2 August (swimming starts on 26th) Venue: Foro Italico, Rome
Coverage: Live/highlights on BBC Two, Red Button and BBC Sport website

Adlington and Jackson go head-to-head in the 400m freestyle on Sunday

A row over swimsuit technology threatens to overshadow the Fina World Championships in Rome.

The latest hi-tech suit, which is said to enhance buoyancy and reduce drag, has split opinion, with some swimmers claiming it offers an unfair advantage.

Governing body Fina has approved a number of suits it initially rejected.

"Having experienced first hand some of these suits, I have no doubt they are performance enhancing," Australian star Libby Trickett told BBC Sport.

Double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington refuses to wear one of the new, faster suits but many of her rivals, including fellow Briton Jo Jackson, will.

MATT SLATER BLOG The world's finest swim suits have been racking up records like superstar DJs

"I think it's a shame to be honest," the 20-year-old Adlington told BBC Sport. "Swimming always used to be a level playing field.

"I can remember watching when they were just in trunks and 100% textile suits, whereas now it's very, very different.

"The technology has just taken off in the last year, it's come from nowhere. We need to go back to putting rules in place, just to make it a fair playing field for everyone."

Adlington, the first British female swimmer to win Olympic gold for 48 years, is to stick with the Speedo LZR she wore in Beijing, even though it could put her at a disadvantage.

The LZR is a 50% polyurethane swimsuit which caused controversy in 2008 as a series of world records were set by swimmers wearing it.

Jackson spurred on by Adlington

Since it was unveiled in February that year, 135 long and short course world records have been broken.

But since the Olympics, a second generation 100% polyurethane swimsuit has emerged, which is said to compress muscle, add extra buoyancy and provide more forward propulsion.

Jackson will sport one of these suits in Rome - the adidas Hydrofoil, which Britta Steffen wore when she slashed the 100m freestyle world record in June.

German swimmer Steffen said the suit made her feel like a "speedboat" and felt no pain at the end of the race.

Fina rejected some of the new suits in March after complaints they trapped air around a swimmer's body, thus making them more buoyant, but the ban was lifted after manufacturers provided evidence that they did not trap air.

Trickett slams performance-enhancing swimsuits

Adlington and Jackson go head-to-head on Sunday in the 400m freestyle, the event at which Jackson beat her close friend and set a new world record in Sheffield in March.

"I wore a normal suit when I broke the world record," Jackson told BBC Sport. "I've got in the water and swum in five or six different suits and swum well in every single one of them."

Italy's Federica Pellegrini, expected to be the British pair's main rival, is another who will be wearing a new suit.

"It has taken the limelight from people's performances and that's not right," said Trickett.

"I don't think the sport should have headed in the direction it has, in terms of neoprene and polyurethane suits.

"I don't believe that is right for our sport at all and it's disappointing it's gone in that direction and it's disappointing that Fina allowed it to progress the way it did."

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