Next Generation POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro (Mark 2) is already available.
Superior performance, quality products, transparency and ethical and fair business practices have been Arena’s key values since its inception forty years ago.
Consistent with these principles, all Arena products are designed and manufactured using the most innovative technologies and applying strict quality controls to ensure the highest consumer satisfaction for performance, quality and safety.
In February 2013, FINA, the international governing body for all aquatic sports, requested compliance information regarding one of the Arena POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro racing suits (woman full body open back – FINA approval code AR220993), purchased during routine testing.
Arena immediately launched an additional quality control investigation on a broad scale, showing that all raw materials used to manufacture all models in the POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro product family are fully compliant with FINA rules and regulations. Deeper checks suggested that a change in the manufacturing process, following a significant surge of market demand, may have caused an unintended – and unexpected – reduction of the permeability to air of some of the racing suits produced between the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013.
Only part of the production is affected by the anomaly, which has absolutely no impact either on the safety or on the performance of the products that are potentially non-compliant.
Nevertheless, as it would be impractical to test all POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro racing suits on the market, Arena wants to ensure that not even one non-compliant suit will be used in any FINA official competition.
Arena, therefore, advised FINA of its decision to withdraw the approval codes of concerned POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro models:
AR220993 – woman full body open back
AR220994 – woman full body closed back
AR141364 – man jammer
Consequently, as of May 7 onwards, all POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro suits to be used in FINA sanctioned events will have the following approval codes:
AR221039 – woman full body open back
AR221028 – woman full body closed back
AR141028 – man jammer
A complete list of all Arena racing suits approved by FINA can be found at fina.org.
Arena has already started delivering the new version of POWERSKIN Carbon-Pro suits (Mark 2) to Teams and Individual Swimmers, in view of forthcoming FINA events.
“Arena apologizes for any inconvenience – said Cristiano Portas, Arena CEO – but its commitment to fully comply with FINA rules and, more broadly, its commitment to fair competition in the world of swimming must be given the highest priority”.
Additional details about this matter, including remedies offered by arena to all swimmers going to compete in FINA sanctioned events, are available at arenapowerskin.com.