So long as there is doubt whether the LZR Speedo is giving unfair advantage to swimmers who use it, I can’t understand why FINA would continue to sanction its use. I also don’t understand why otherwise honorable athletes — I’m looking at you Americans and Australians — would be okay with using it.

Whatever happened to your sense of fairness? Whatever happened to having an even playing field? Are Olympic winners now going to be determined by what athletes wear and not whether they are the fastest or the strongest? Maybe the ancient Greeks who competed buck naked have the right idea after all.

Anyways, for those of you monitoring the LZR Racer controversy, FINA is reportedly meeting on June 3 to review the swimsuits made by other manufacturers. I wonder what FINA will do if these other manufacturers come up with swimsuits that enable its users to swim much faster than those using the LZR. Will Americans and Australians cry “technological doping” as the Italians are doing now. Or will they accept it without question despite the possibility that they may be at a disadvantage.

Did she defect to the United States? Or did something bad happen to her that we still don’t know about? Yurisel Laborde is a Cuban judoka who won a bronze medal during the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She also boasts of two Judo World Championships gold medals which she bagged in 2005 and 2007.

After winning a gold medal during the 2008 Pan American Judo Championships in Miami last week, Yurisel disappeared. Pretty mysterious, eh?

Maybe the “family-style atmosphere” within Cuba’s sports program which we blogged about earlier, isn’t as enticing as the greener pastures of the good old US of A?

How much incentive money does the United States award to its Olympic medal winners? According to CNNmoney.com, the United States Olympic Committee gave out the following amounts in 2004:

$25,000 to gold medal winners, $15,000 to those who take home a silver and $10,000 for a bronze

I guess it’s safe to assume that U.S. medalists in the Beijing Olympics will receive a higher monetary incentive.

Update: A listing of financial incentives to Olympic athletes from different countries is published at How Much Money Do Olympians Make.

Related:
Money Report: How Much Money Do They Make?

Want to win an Olympic medal? Be cooperative rather than competitive. Don’t take my word for it. Take the words of sports psychologist Susan Butt who believes that Cuba’s remarkable achievements in the Olympics could be traced to its emphasis on “reinforcing feelings of competence and co-operation in athletes” rather than “promoting aggression and competition”.

From UBC Public Affairs:

While some degree of aggression and competition is highly desirable in an athlete, Butt feels they receive far too much emphasis.

“If an athlete is to have the greatest chance of fulfilling their potential, they are best served by feelings of co-operation and competence. In North America, many coaches would like to see their athletes be more aggressive and competitive, and I’ve long argued against that,” she says.

Butt says her theories are often misunderstood: “I’m not against having a contest, but there are better ways of approaching competition,” she says. “We often waste our elite athletes. We throw them into the dustbin when their careers are over.”

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