GENEVA (AP) — Swimming’s governing body will decide in March whether to enact controls on the high-tech swim suits which have helped produce more than 100 world records this year.

FINA said Monday it would “take appropriate action” when its decision-making bureau meets March 12-14 in Dubai.
Bureau members will get reports from an elite coaches’ forum being held in Singapore next month and a Feb. 20 summit meeting of suit manufacturers at FINA headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. That meeting is also scheduled to hear from FINA technical committee members, swimmers, coaches and sports lawyers.
“FINA is looking for the collaboration of all the partners in this area, so that final decisions can be globally accepted and fully understandable by the swimming worldwide community,” the federation said in a statement from its Lausanne headquarters.
One-hundred-and-eight world records have been broken since Speedo’s LZR Racer suit was made available to swimmers last February after being designed and tested with the help of NASA. Other manufacturers followed with their own high-tech suits.
FINA was criticized for upholding the suit designs for the Beijing Olympics and not providing a clear definition of the divide between an acceptable swimsuit and a “device” that enhanced performance.
Opponents say the suits create illegal levels of buoyancy and amount to “technological doping.”
A group of 15 national teams competing at the short-course European Championships in Croatia two weeks ago signed a protest letter calling on FINA to create better guidelines regulating the suits.
USA Swimming has also petitioned the governing body to act, requesting that suits “shall not cover the neck, extend past the shoulder, nor past the knee.”
Swimming Australia joined the debate last week, calling on FINA to stop approving new suits and enforce a rule restricting swimmers to wearing one suit at a time. Some competitors have worn two and even three suits in races to create a more streamlined body shape and guard against the stretched-tight material splitting.
FINA has commissioned research from a university it has not identified to examine the thickness of new suits and design a scientific test that will determine whether they are “credible” within the sport.
Any change in FINA rules could be in place for the 2009 World Championships in Rome from July 18-Aug. 2.