Question: Sorry, I pressed the wrong button! Hi In swimming, the new swimsuits have been banned because they made a huge difference to swimmers time. How does this work as they are just swimsuits, arent they? Thanks Wil

Ryan Ladd answered on 21 Jun 2011:

These swim suits are really amazing. Not only are they based on shark skin to make the swimmers have really low friction in the water they also controlled the swimmers blood flow, by squeezing their abdomen, and had really clever parts made of rubber which acted like springs on the swimmers legs.

The reason they were banned were for two reasons, I think.

Firstly, they gave the swimmers an advantage over what they could do naturally, if a runner turned up with springs on their legs or a long jumper was carrying a hand glider it wouldn’t seem very fair!

Secondly, because the suits were so good, all the swimmers felt like they needed to have them, or they couldn’t possibly win but the suits are very very expensive and not everyone could afford to buy them.