Impossible Visions

The materials used in the new breed of competition skinsuits -- full suits, leggings, jammers and briefs -- are so tight and sheer at times they simply look painted on. On top of how amazing these suits look -- so slick and shiny on wet muscles -- it has become a habit for competitive swimmers to strip down the tops of their full suits after a race, revealing their lean torsos and the fine lines in their waists. They seem to me like impossible visions.

All of these photos were taken by Finneye for Outsports.com last December in Finland at the 2006 European Short Course Swimming Championships. If you haven't visited these extensive galleries, then I recommend you click here. Finneye has a nice Flickr gallery as well.

Randall Bal, Swim God from Stanford

Stanford swimmer Randall Bal is one of the top competitive swimmers in the US, long and lean, sometimes blond, sometimes darker and crewcut, as you can see from the photos below, collected online over a period of time.

It is possible some of these photos are not of him, so I'd appreciate any comments or corrections from readers. Trying to figure out who is who in competitive swimming is like throwing darts at a target while blindfolded. Everyone looks nearly the same in goggles and a latex cap.

Stanford Swimmers #2

More Stanford swimmers in their cardinal red speedos.

(Note: The stacked image is an old one posted by queerclick.com several months ago. A warning that queerclick is a sexually oriented gay blog. Do not go there unless you wish to see that kind of content.)

Stanford Waterpolo #1

Here are the first seven of fifteen images I have of the Stanford waterpolo team. Some of these images have become quite famous over the past year. I've collected them one and two at a time from all over the blogosphere. I've also made some wallpapers of them, which I will post soon.

Stanford Swimmers #1

These are mostly photos from Stanford University's official swim team website.

The team has a wonderful slide show screensaver with some of these photos and many more.