INTRODUCTION: Several world records have been broken in recent years. Swimming community speculates this fact is partly related due to the changes in swimsuits characteristics. To swim faster one need to increase the thrust and reduce drag, which can be achieved wearing the new polyurethane swimsuits (Marinho et al., 2009). The purpose of this study was to verify the distribution of different swimsuits used by male swimmers during all the freestyle finals, according to the different distances swum, at the last world championships being held at Rome in 2009. METHODS: Results databases from the 13th FINA World Championships, in Rome 2009 were used. Only the male swimmers participating in the freestyle finals were observed and analyzed, for a total number of six individual swimming events (50 m, 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, 1500 m). The wearing swimsuits were observed from video recorded of the television broadcast. RESULTS: In freestyle swimming events most of the male swimmers participating in the finals choose to wear full body swimsuits. Three different swimsuits brands were used by the swimmers: Powerskin X-Glide Full® (56.25%), Jaked01 Full® (29.17%) and LZR Racer Full® (10.42%). Only 2.08% of the sample used pants. In the shortest event, 50 m, Jaked01 Full® was predominant with 62.50% of the swimmers choices. This value decreases to 25.00% analyzing the 100 m swimming event, and remained similar over the longer distances events. Contrarily, the Powerskin X-Glide Full® was used for 37.50% of the swimmers in 50 m swimming event, and it increased to 62.50% in the 100 m freestyle. This value remained similar over distances up to 1500 m. The maximum value of wearing reached by the LZR Racer Full® was 25.00% in the 400 m, being less used in the other swimming events, even reaching zero values in the 50 m and in the 1500 m events. DISCUSSION: The distribution of swimsuits wearing found in this study leads us to speculate that the Jaked01 Full® was preferred for the shorter distances and Powerskin X-Glide Full® was the choice for longer distances. The LZR Racer Full® was the least suit used and thus it seems it is not a preference for freestyle swimming events at this specific competition. These results seem to demonstrate that swimmers have some preferences regarding swimsuit type according to the distance of the swimming event.
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