Sleeveless wetsuit with sleeves under?
If a race is wetsuit legal, can you wear a sleeveless wetsuit with a short-sleeved bike jersey or speed suit underneath it?
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If a race is wetsuit legal, can you wear a sleeveless wetsuit with a short-sleeved bike jersey or speed suit underneath it?
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This is a total guess: Back in 2006/7, athletes started showing up at Kona in thin (<1mm) neoprene skin suits, which were also being used then during swimming championships. They came in all styles: legs (both to the knee and to the ankle), short and long versions which had tops, but were sleeveless, and short and long versions which has full sleeves. This caused a furor when Normann Stadler wore one and dropped his swim split 4 minutes year on year, and won the race for a second time. WTC went round and round about how to deal with this, and eventually promulgated rules governing both the fabric and length of arms (none ) and legs (to the knee), around 2010/11. Current wording for NON WETSUIT swims: "When the use of wetsuits is prohibited (see Section 4.03), clothing covering any part of the arms below the shoulders and clothing covering any of the leg below the knee is deemed illegal equipment and is not permitted during the swim segment of the Race but may be worn after completion of the swim segment..." And the wording on sleeveless wetsuits: "A race kit may be worn underneath a wetsuit, but when using a sleeveless wetsuit, clothing covering any part of the arms below the shoulders is prohibited." </p>
My guess is that when they decided to do a complete redo of all their rules for 2015, they didn't think thru this very clearly; when thinking about sleeveless wetsuits, they made the inaccurate analogy that anything which might give an advantage (sleeves) for skin suits would give the same advantage for sleeveless wetsuits.
Well, come on! If we wanted an advantage over sleeveless wetsuits, we would just wear sleeved wetsuits, which ARE legal. If an athlete is worried about over-heating in a 76.0F swim, and doesn't want to use a full sleeve wetsuit, he could just cut the sleeves off at the desired length. Or buy this from DeSoto. Either of which WOULD be legal under the current rules. I predict this rule will not last out the next 12 months.
Now, what to do in the meantime? EN cycling jerseys, which fit very snuggly in an aero sense, come in a full-zip mode. Meaning, you can put it on like a jacket, doesn't have to go over your head in T1 (which can cause delays from friction of fabric against wet skin). That's what I did last fall in Kona: wore a sleeveless skin suit for the swim (not that it helped any), and put on my EN cycling jersey in T1 to cover my shoulders from the tropical sun.
Like the sun protection, pockets for flat kit and incidentals. Cost about 30 seconds total in T1/T2.
Small stuff sack with kit and 1 tube in 1 pocket, second tube in another. Everything preloaded in pockets in my T1 bag.
works for me.