At long last, the day that has been long anticipated in the swimming community: January 1, 2009, also known as D-day for high-tech super suits. With the new year, the cease-fire for the assault on swimming's record books goes into effect.

Today, the new FINA suit regulations went into effect, which included eliminating the polyurethane suits which were responsible for setting over 100 World Records in 2009. Swimmers in the United States might not notice any significant change, as every major governing body there, except for US Masters Swimming) had already adopted new rules beginning with the fall season.

Although every organization has slightly different wordings of the rules, some general guidelines are: the suits must be between the knees and the waist for males, and knees and shoulders for females; the suits must be made of a permeable material, most commonly polyester and lycra; and the suits may not have any sort of zippers or fasteners on them.

Click here to see the complete list on the FINA website, which we presume will be updated as more companies roll out new suits.

There are a few notable omissions from the list. Jaked, whose J01 became the dubious face of the polyurethane suit controversy, has not yet released a 2010-legal suit. The Italian manufacturer was the most successful suit at the 2009 World Championships by winning a total of 37 medals. By all accounts, Jaked is still in the process of developing a new suit, but no word has been made on when that might be ready. Adidas, maker of the Hydrofoil, appears to have abandoned for now its attempt at making inroads into swimming merchandise.

Speedo, for its part, has publicly promised that all of the new suits it has approved will be allowed by FINA. This includes the popular Fast Skin (FS) Pros, FSII, Aquablade, and LZR Racer. It is important to note that Speedo has chosen to continue its LZR brand on a new, 2010 legal suit. The original LZR had polyurethane panels on it, and is therefore no longer legal. Be absolutely certain your new LZR is in fact a new LZR before purchasing it.

Thus far, FINA has approved 58 suits from 10 manufacturers. At the 2009 World Championships, 388 suits from 25 manufacturers were on the approved list.