Faster Swimming Sinks High-Tech Speed Suits Suits

李武军

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Swimmers broke many records this week at the world championships in Rome. But there was the swimsuit issue.

Start of the men's 200 meter individual medley race in Rome

FINA is the group that governs swimming. On Tuesday, its officers accepted a decision by FINA members to ban high-tech swimsuits next year.

Full-body suits first appeared in the two thousand Summer Olympics. But in Rome, German swimmer Paul Biedermann said the growing attention to the issue made him mad. "It's all about the suits. It's not about the swimmer anymore."

He said that after he defeated American Michael Phelps in the two hundred meter freestyle. And he did it faster than the world record time Phelps set last year at the Beijing Olympics.

Paul Biedermann, bottom, and Michael Phelps at the start of the 200 meter freestyle

Biedermann wore the newest speed suit. Phelps wore last year's version. His coach later said he would urge Phelps not to compete internationally until the ban takes effect next year.

That was all Tuesday. The next day, Michael Phelps competed in the two hundred meter butterfly. Again he wore last year's Speedo Racer. This time, he not only won, he broke his own world record.

Now, we turn to some other sports stories of recent days.

Mark Buehrle pitching his perfect game

In baseball, Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game on July twenty-third. He threw to twenty-seven batters without one of them getting on base.

Buehrle pitched only the eighteenth perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball. The last one was in two thousand four. President Obama, a White Sox fan from Chicago, called to congratulate him.

Four days later, baseball had another rare event. Josh Willingham of the Washington Nationals hit two grand slams in one game. He became just the thirteenth Major League player ever to hit a home run with the bases loaded twice in the same game.

In cycling, American Lance Armstrong announced he will return to the Tour de France next year with a new American-based team. The seven-time winner competed this year on the Astana team based in Kazakhstan.

Armstrong finished third last Sunday after a three-and-a-half year retirement. His Astana teammate Alberto Contador of Spain won his second Tour. Andy Schleck of Luxembourg finished second.

On July nineteenth, American Tom Watson aimed to become the oldest golfer to win a major event. The oldest man so far was forty-eight year old Julius Boros in nineteen sixty-eight.

The fifty-nine year old Watson needed to make a short attempt on his final hole to win the British Open. But he missed from about two and a half meters, and then lost in a playoff to American Stewart Cink.

And finally, this week Michael Vick won a conditional return to the National Football League. But no N.F.L. teams showed immediate interest in having him play. Vick recently served eighteen months in federal prison for running a dog fighting operation in which he also killed dogs. The former quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons was once the league's highest paid player.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.