The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) recently released their rule changes for the upcoming high school swim and dive seasons. Overall, there were six changes to swimming rules which look to help align better to USA swimming rules and two changes to diving rules that focus on safety. Here’s the layperson’s breakdown of the changes.
- Clean up of wording and sequence of existing rules (2) – The major one here is removing the word “decent” when describing allowable swimwear in competitions. “Decent” was subjective to the official and based on meetings I had with officials at meets over the past year, they don’t want that to fall completely on them.
- Written record for dual confirmation on false starts (1) – seems to make sense that you have documentation around a false start.
- Backstroke finishes (1) – Removes the language about some part of the body at or above the surface during a backstroke finish. This puts high school rules in alignment with other swimming governing bodies and eliminates disqualifications for the toes going underwater when a swimmer dives back for the finish.
- Breaststroke and butterfly (2) – The arms and legs still have to move simultaneously but can no longer have to be on the same horizontal plane. Also, hands need to be sperate on touches for turns and finishes. This also aligns with USA swimming rules that currently exist.
- Diving (2) – removal of a couple dives from the dive table and scoring penalties for being too close to the board. Safety first!
You can see the specific rule changes and rationale on the NFHS Site