Tuesday was not a good day for Michael Phelps. The 2008 U.S. Olympic champion lost a major race for the first time in four years, but he and his coach, Bob Bowman, think they know why: his competitor’s suit.

Germany’s relatively unknown Paul Biedermann bested Phelps in the 200-meter freestyle, setting a world record of one minute, 42 seconds, that was almost a full second faster than the record Phelps set at last year’s Beijing Olympics. Yet, Biedermann’s victory has caused a wave of controversy across the swimming world because he was wearing a high-tech, polyurethane, rubber-coated bodysuit called the Arena X-Glide. Phelps, on the other hand, was wearing a Speedo LZR Racer.

Biedermann was quick to acknowledge that his suit played a significant role in his win. “The suits make a difference,” he said. “I hope there will be a time when I can beat Michael Phelps without these suits. I hope next year. I hope it’s really soon.”

But Bowman was irate that FINA, the international body that oversees the sport, allows swimmers to wear a suit that gives them such an unfair advantage over other athletes. Bowman is now considering having Phelps boycott all international races until 2010, when FINA has said the Arena X-Glide and polyurethane suits like it, will be banned. “Probably expect Michael not to swim until they are implemented,” Bowman said. “I’m done with this. It has to be implemented immediately. The sport is in shambles right now and they better do something or they’re going to lose their guy who fills these seats.”

That Bowman and Phelps would react so strongly to a racer using an innovative suit to improve his time is somewhat ironic considering that the full-body Speedo Phelps wears has been said by swimming experts to give swimmers an unfair competitive edge. Swimming records were broken at an unprecedented rate in Beijing and there seems to be a strong correlation between the rapid advances in swimsuit design and faster times.

Swimmers say that suits like the X-Glide and the LZR Racer help an athlete’s buoyancy in the water, keeping them higher as they stroke. But a debate about whether new swimsuit technology is ruining competitive swimming has been swirling for over 40 years.

Early Olympic swimmers wore tank-top outfits that resemble today’s full-body suits but were not nearly as sleek and aerodynamic. Male swimmers then began to go shirtless when they discovered that shaved skin allowed them to encounter less resistance in the water.

However, the first dramatic swimsuit transformation came in 1974, when tight-fitting Lycra suits were introduced. The same year, female swimmers began to sport suits without skirts in competition.

As records began to fall, swimsuit design continued to progress. At the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta, Ga., Speedo put out its “Aquablade” suit, which reduced resistance while covering more of both male and female swimmers’ bodies. Seventy-seven percent of the medal winners in Atlanta wore the Aquablade.

Speedo then bettered itself by introducing the Fastskin, which covered even more of a swimmer’s body. In 2000, USA Swimming approved the use of full-body suits in races. In 1999 and 2000, Speedo’s full-body, sharkskin-like suits caused a stir in the pool as leading coaches warned that it was making it too easy for swimmers to shatter world records. And as evidenced by the X-Glide and LZR Racer, since 2000 suits have only gotten more sleek.

Clearly, the days of Mark Spitz swimming in a simple Speedo without so much as a cap over his hair are long gone.

The South Korean city of Pyeongchang was awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics on Wednesday after failing in two previous attempts.

Pyeongchang defeated rivals Munich and Annecy, France, in the first round of a secret ballot of the International Olympic Committee.

Needing 48 votes for victory, Pyeongchang received 63 of the 95 votes cast. Munich received 25 and Annecy seven.

The Koreans had lost narrowly in previous bids for the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.

Pyeongchang will be the first city in Asia outside Japan to host the Winter Games. Japan held the games in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.

Olympic gold-medalist Lindsey Vonn has recreated that scene from “Basic Instinct” on the cover of ESPN magazine. And by “that scene” I do mean the one in which Sharon Stone infamously flashed her naughty bits to the world. It’s the magazine’s movie issue — why ESPN has a movie issue, I do not know — and it boasts a bunch of athletes reproducing classic film scenes. The headline accompanying the saucy cover photo is, wait for it, “Back to Basics.” Funny, I thought the magazine’s Body Issue — which came out just a few months ago and features exquisitely athletic naked bodies — was a return to “basics.” But it doesn’t get any more basic, or base, than paying homage to the most famous crotch shot in cinematic history.

London Olympic organizers say a record 5,000 doping tests will be carried out at the 2012 Games.

The local organizing committee has signed a memorandum of understanding with Britain’s anti-doping body and will implement the testing program under the authority of the International Olympic Committee.

London 2012 director of sport Debbie Jevans says the size of the testing program will give a “strong message that drug cheats are not welcome at the London Games.”

UK Anti-Doping will train anti-doping officials and assist them during the event to carry out a 10 percent increase on the 4,500 tests conducted at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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Canada’s women’s hockey team has scored quite the controversy by daring to celebrate their win against the U.S. on Thursday by sipping beer, guzzling champagne and smoking cigars on the ice. After the fans filtered out of the stadium, the ladies returned to the rink still in uniform with gold medals draped around their necks. They laid on the ice, poured champagne in each other’s mouths and soaked up the Olympic glory. Their revelry hardly would have garnered any attention, except for one minor detail: there was an Associated Press photographer on hand to capture it all on film.