The suits, such as the Speedo LZR Racer and the Arena X-Glide, became household words after Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, was beaten by an unknown German swimmer in the 200 m freestyle at this week's world championships in Rome.

Paul Biedermann pulled away from Phelps early to win the race, beating Phelps's world record in a time of 1 minute, 42 seconds. Phelps and his coach immediately blamed Biedermann's swimsuit, the X-Glide, for his victory.

According to Tewksbury, the bathing suit acts almost like a flotation device, which allows the swimmer to hydroplane rather than swim through the water.

"So that's where it becomes a bit unusual in that the very nature of the history of our sport is being changed," Tewksbury, who won a gold medal in the 100 m backstroke at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, said Thursday on Canada AM. "And I think there's a lot of purists that obviously love swimming for swimming and are saying, 'how far can we go to let this technology change the sport?'"

"This is the first time in my life where I thought, 'whoa, maybe this is too far,'" Tewksbury added. Continued....