Science and sport—and Speedo—(how’s that for alliteration?) march on. In the drive for human progress, the competitive swimsuit has undergone a remarkable transformation.

Some of us, of course, merely hope that our swimsuits will manage to hide rather than reveal our body’s cosmetic flaws. The price of swimsuits has been creeping up along with the proliferation of their magic underpinnings. Names like “miracle suit” let us know what sort of transformation is in store for us if only—if only—we would buy this product (those models don’t look as though they’re in need of any miracles, IMHO, but then again we haven’t seen their “before” photos).

Competitive swimming is another thing entirely. Long lean bodies on men and women, muscles built for speed rather than bulk, only a bit of fat in the right places, and every hair shaved in order to reduce drag. No need to hide anything.

But fashion is hardly the issue for serious swimmers, it’s winning. And in the race for the gold there’s a new weapon in the arsenal, the Speedo Fastskin LZR racer swimsuit.

The controversy over the suit involves whether it confers an unfair advantage in terms of buoyancy. Its attributes: bonded seams that eliminate drag-inducing stitches, a hidden zipper for the same reason, and special panels that further the cause.

The problem is that not all countries have access to the suit. But is the playing field ever level? This doesn’t exactly measure up to certain other inequities we’ve had in competitive swimming, such as the East German doping some years ago that made their women look like men—and win like men would have in a women’s competition.

And now for the photos. Here’s the suit at work in the water:

And here’s the half-suit on land, showing a bit more skin:

There’s no turning back—including what could be an interesting turn, back to the days when the Olympics were held in the nude.

Here’s a description:

The [male] nude athletes would parade like peacocks up and down the stadium. Poets would write in a shaky hand these wonderful odes to the bodies of the young men, their skin the color of fired clay.

But other cultures, like the Persians and the Egyptians, looked at these Greek men oiling one another down and writhing in the mud, and found it very strange. They believed it promoted sexual degeneracy.

Married women were not allowed in—too much like a night at Chippendales?—but young women and virgins were. And even though women were not allowed to compete, there was a sort of auxiliary distaff Olympics, held at Olympia:

The young women ran in short tunics with their right breast exposed as an homage to the Amazon warrior women, a race of female super warriors that was believed to have cauterized their right breast so as not to impede their javelin throwing.

In Sparta there were women wrestling. There’s a great story of a Roman senator traveling from afar to see these Spartan women, who were legendarily beautiful and muscular. He got so excited that he jumped in the ring.

Yessiree, never let it be said that those Romans (or those Senators) didn’t know how to enjoy themselves.

Although I’m sure we swim a lot faster.