KEY POINTS:
Bring it on, if you can get it on in time. A new suit has given swimming the sort of publicity that used to greet the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.
Speedo's controversial new LZR suit has jumped swimming into headlines around the world as records tumble. Terrific.
It
is ironic that the Speedo company is leading the way with a revolutionary low-drag, full-body suit. Whereas super skimpy Speedos of the past were all about travelling light, the new LZR sounds like a car and you need a pit crew to get into one of them.
Speedo used to be a byword for letting it all hang out - the company's most famous togs left little to the imagination and had more to do with making a splash out of the water. Now it is at the forefront of reduced forefronts.
The LZR is high compression, low passion. Gone are the bulges, including any in your wallet if you are able to buy one. It won't take off at the Riviera, but it's a winner with the world's best swimmers right now. And swimming could do with a lift.
There is much to admire about competitive swimmers, who live and die by the early morning alarm clock and fractions of a second.
But as a spectator sport it leaves most people cold, apart from the really big, Olympic-class races when superstars clash and national honour is at stake.
Swimming is about rivalry, but it might also place a new emphasis on breaking amazing speed barriers. Perhaps it could go the whole way and introduce flippers. Release the handbrakes - why should Ian Thorpe have all the fun just because he was blessed with size 16s.
The sport has had a number of controversial periods, especially in the 1930s when rules were made to be broken.
But we may be about to enter a new techno-inspired swimming age, although only time will tell if the suits are all they are cracked up to be. For now, the war is on and Speedo's competitors are about to unveil rivals to the LZR. Why the fuss, especially since swimming was on the bodysuit course already?
It is claimed the high compression of the new suit moulds swimmers into the ideal shape.
Yet if nature must always rule over technological nurture, should we also ban athletes who need contact lenses or glasses?
You could argue that this modern swim suit is making top class swimming available to all, that it gives the less streamlined a chance that nature denied them.
The new suits are aquatic democrats, bringing dreams of gold to all who sail in them. Kids all over the planet will be demanding an LZR in their Christmas cyber cart thanks to this swimsuit hysteria, even if they've got stuff-all chance of getting one at the current rate of about $1000 a pop.
The critics have included former Aussie swimming great Kieran Perkins, one of the original bodysuiters, who is allegedly concerned some kids will be priced out of the race.
Don't worry, Kieran - manufacturers keen on sales have a wonderful knack of finding prices that suit one and all, even if their methods are not always desirable.
The controversy around the suit is hard to fathom in many ways, considering that cyclists now look like creatures whose victory speech might include "take me to your leader".
From weightlifting belts, rigid ski boots, dynamo tennis rackets and aerodynamic cycles and helmets all the way to that bit of string tennis star Onny Parun clamped around his neck - sport is riddled with performance- enhancing gear.
Football clothing is so intuitive you could be forgiven for thinking it writes the press releases. Formula One motor racing cars are so advanced that the drivers are hardly worth a mention any more.
And if the bodysuits are only advantageous when tailormade for the very best, so what? High class sport is all about reaching for the stars, so why should they be dragged down by the masses.
Maybe there is an innocence associated with swimming, which encourages a belief that water and skin should meet. But sport lost such gushy innocence many moons ago and there is no way back.
Sports people have always sought an edge and sneaky advances remain a fascinating part of every game.
Even our revered 1905 All Blacks were in on the act. These originals covered themselves in a home remedy before and after matches. The ointment constituted six parts eucalyptus, three parts whiskey and one part hartshorn - a raising agent used in baking - and was rubbed all over to ease aches and pains.
There have also been suggestions that the greasy substance made the old All Blacks harder to tackle.
As for the subject of technology overwhelming sport, or golf as it is known, where do you start?
When wound rubber replaced the original goose feather inners for golf balls, the scene was set for a sort of space race.
Old blokes who have trouble lifting their teeth out of a glass can now bang a ball over the car park instead of into it, or so deep into the rough that David Attenborough wouldn't find it.
Golf has reached a point where the clubs are so clever it's the golfers who should be chucked in the boot.
Technology never stops and for all the hand-wringing over advanced sports gear, the punters eagerly follow the professionals when they can - even if the credit card takes a hammering.
Swimming could do with a quantum leap, so let's see how fast humans can really go in a pool using anything short of an outboard motor.
It's a potentially exciting time when record times can be blown out of the water.
