OMAHA — You’ve heard of the great swimsuit. With the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials beginning here today, welcome to the great swimsuit lawsuit.
The biggest battle in U.S. swimming may not be Michael Phelps versus Aaron Peirsol or Natalie Coughlin versus Katie Hoff. It may be between Speedo and TYR. The two swimsuit manufacturing giants will square off in court after TYR filed a lawsuit last month against Speedo, USA Swimming and U.S. swimming coach Mark Schubert.
The protagonist in this sordid affair is Speedo’s new LZR Racer suit. Of the record 42 world records broken this year, 38 were by swimmers wearing the LZR, and the swimsuit may share center stage with the swimmers who earn Olympic berths this week.
TYR’s lawsuit stems from comments made by Schubert this spring when he urged swimmers to wear the LZR suit “or they may end up at home watching on NBC.”
Speedo is a USA Swimming sponsor and Schubert is a “Speedo advisory coach,” according to Stu Isaac, Speedo North America’s vice president of team sales and marketing. When asked if that is another way of saying Schubert is a paid spokesman, Isaac said, “We don’t discuss positions.”
TYR will. It claims Schubert has used his influence to steer swimmers away from TYR, including Eric Vendt, a two-time Olympian whom TYR is also suing. Vendt is under contract to wear TYR’s Tracer Rise suit, with which TYR boasts a 4 percent improvement in times, but he is opting for the LZR.
In a phone call from TYR’s Huntington Beach, Calif., headquarters Saturday, TYR founder and 1972 Olympian Steve Furniss said, “As the head coach, as the national team director of the most powerful swimming nation on the planet, obviously his comments and his statements have not only affected the psyche of a number of athletes here but have been relevant to a number of foreign swimming federations as well.”
A court motion has pushed the lawsuit to be heard in court Sept. 15 — after the Olympics, so no swimmer will be plucked out of the pool here and forced to change clothes. The controversy, however, has produced an uneasy air on the eve of a competition that may match Beijing in terms of crowd size and enthusiasm.
Both Speedo and TYR held press conferences Saturday trumpeting their wares. Speedo has brought 2,500 LZR suits for any swimmer to use, free of charge, and TYR brought 1,000 Tracer Rises.
“I think it’s been on the radar … for athletes who are trying to figure out what suit to wear,” said Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming. “As a federation, I haven’t lost a moment of sleep over it.”
Both companies also found themselves discussing Schubert’s role with Speedo. While Schubert won’t comment on the suit, Wielgus had no problem with Schubert pushing swimmers to the LZR.
“He’s a coach expressing his opinion,” Wielgus said. “I’m perfectly comfortable having our head coach having opinions that he can back up.”
Some numbers are astounding. Of 15 world records in long course (50-meter) pools this year, 14 were set in LZR suits. Four years ago, only seven long-course world records were set before the Athens Olympics. So many swimmers met qualifying times since the suit was introduced this winter, the number of Olympic Trials participants has jumped from 695 in 2004 to 1,200 in Omaha.
The LZR suit features flattened seams and compresses the body for better aerodynamics. Michael Phelps, who is shooting to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven Olympic gold medals in Beijing, helped design it and wears the suit, as do Coughlin, Hoff and most of the top U.S. swimmers.
TYR’s clients include Olympic silver medalist Amanda Weir and Mark Warkentin, an Olympian in the new Olympic sport of open water.
USA Swimming and Speedo are taking the suit seriously but they’re disturbed the lawsuit was filed a month before the biggest U.S. meet in four years.
“I think the timing was planned,” Wielgus said. “There’s no hard feelings … It’s an annoyance, a simple annoyance, and we think it’ll go away very quickly.”
Larry Hilton, TYR’s attorney, responded: “If it was planned, it was planned by them. The (foundation) of the lawsuit was from comments Mark Schubert made in March and April. If it was planned, they determined the timing.”
Despite who’s at fault, it has everyone in the sport talking about the swimsuit at the Olympic Trials as much as the swimmers.
“It’s going to get more people in the sport,” Isaac said. “Technology is cool.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
