Effective for the 2017-18 academic year, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved having men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams follow International Swimming Federation technical rules. In applying international rules to the NCAA, the Panel believes continuity will be created for student-athletes, while also ensuring consistency among the technical officials.
Below are the changes approved by the Panel to be implemented, as originally recommended by the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Rules Committee:
Lighting Systems
- The panel also approved the use of lights or a lighting system in addition to hand signals used for the start of races involving deaf and hard of hearing swimmers. The lights or lighting system can be used to mimic the audio commands of the referee. The lights or lighting system must be fully integrated with the existing automatic timing system.
Diving
- The panel approved establishing a diving-only dual meet format and a scoring format for those events.
- In dual diving meets, when either team has three or fewer total participants per gender, the scoring of individual-event place values will be 7-5-4-3-2-1.
- In dual diving meets, when either team has four or five total participants per gender, the scoring of individual-event place values will be 9-7-6-5-3-2-1, with only the best four contestants from each team scoring.
- In dual diving meets, when both teams have six or more total participants per gender, the scoring of individual-event place values will be 16-13-12-11-10-9-7-5-4-3-2-1, with only the best six contestants from each team scoring.
You can read the original NCAA statement here.
