Speed Suits and Swimming t's

Abstract

The authors examine the impact of high-tech suits on swimmers in the New England Small College Athletic Conference championships in 2009.  The effect these high-tech suits had on drop times (that is, the difference between a swimmer's best in-season time prior to the championships and their best time in the preliminaries or finals of the championships) in the backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly was far greater for men than for women when compared to their drop times in 2010 (the first year of the speed suit ban) and 2008 (one year before the introduction of the speed suits to collegiate swimming).