Rebecca Adlington raced in Diana suits on her way to Commonwealth records in the 400m and 800m freestyle records here at British Olympic trials. Tonight, she wore the Speedo LZR Racer in the heats of the 200m freestyle and put in what was arguably one of the biggest improvements seen at these phenomenal trials: from a best time of 2:00.55 to a 1:56.66 British record.
Also inside her own British record of 1:57.09 was Caitlin McClatchey - also in the LZR. Fifteenth in the race was still inside 2:02. Adlington's time is 0.59sec McClatchey's national standard from 2006 and fell just 0.06sec shy of the Commonwealth record set by Bronte Barratt at Australia trials just two weeks ago. If anyone had said 13 months ago that Adlington would be as fast as Franziska van Almsick's then world record, the giggling would have been hard to suppress. Yet there she is on the list of fastest ever alongside the German:
Asked about the suit, the untied swimmer said: 'I don't think it matters what you wear.' Have you ever gone anywhere close to that speed ever before in training to make you think you could do that, I asked. 'No, never,' said Adlington. Coaches and swimmers will and must say what they say and Adlington and Bill Furniss, based in the home town of Speedo - Nottingham - understandably want to take sole credit for their work.
From outside the bubble I say this: there is absolutely, undeniably, every reason to believe the suit is having a truly significant impact on performance. Adlingtom has worked hard, she came here in the form of her life, she proved herself in the 400m and 800m without the LZR - and then she put in the kind of stunning performance that cause people to ask: how? Four-second improvements in a swimmer who has improved six seconds on an 800m and five seconds on a 400m suggests that something is happening beyond the normal run of improvement.