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 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 February 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.

About 108 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.

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily December 24, 2008)