Never test new things in a competition

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

This is the wisest lesson I can learn from my little mishaps last Saturday. Although the bad luck came from a totally unexpected angle, this is usually how it works with testing out new setups in a competition for the first time. Everything from my prototype to a borrowed suit from Eric van Riet Paap, went fine and was no problem what so ever. It actually went wrong when I used a swim cap in combination with my normal swim goggles. As it turned out the cap-material was to slippery for the head band to not fully hold the swim goggle cups against my eyes. Immediately after take off, they started making water. Normally a little bit of water is no problem, but it kept going until fully filled and yet it kept on passing by my eyes. After 33 meters of little disorientation I called off the first attempt and surfaced somewhat flabbergasted, it was only at my second attempt I realized it was actually due to the swim cap. So having to call that one off as well. So after my both failed attempts I got rid of the swim cap and did a quick 50 meters with only my trusted swim goggles and all was fine. Lesson learned ;)

Besides all that I had a great time safetying all other competitors doing very great performances & national records and running around for the live coverage to happen. All in all I’m very pleased with my new prototype and I will shed some light on that with more details in a next post.