USA Swimming 2025 Rule Change Proposals Including Adding Stroke 50 Records for 15-18 Age Group

USA Swimming has released its proposed amendments to the 2025 Rules & Regulations that will be voted upon at the 2025 Annual Business Meeting that will be held from September 24-27 in Denver.

• See the full document here.

As is customary, most of the proposed changes have to do with housekeeping or deep administrative minutia that don’t impact the average member.

Among the most significant changes is updating the recognized list of events for 15-18 year old swimmers after it was announced that stroke 50s (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke) would be added to the schedule for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Previously, these events were only on the recognized list through the 13-14 age group, but they are receiving a renewed focus domestically now that they will be part of the Olympic lineup.

USA Swimming has confirmed to SwimSwam that this would result in new National Age Group Records in the stroke 50s for the 15-16 and 17-18 age groups, much as they were added to the 13-14 age group last year.

There is a proposal to update and make more succinct the events where American and US Open Records will be recognized. While a lot of changes are expected over the next three years to lean into the new 50 meter stroke races, recognizing American and US Open Records in the 50 yard fly, back, and breast races would not be part of it, if the proposal passes.

LSC Borders

There are increasing conversations nationally about the future and roles of LSCs at the same time as LSCs are moving outside of their boundaries, merging, dividing, and attempting to gobble up territory.

The committee had no recommendation on a vote to allow the Potomac Valley LSC and Virginia Swimming LSC to use pools in each others’ boundaries for meets and practices.

Any pool within the boundaries of Loudoun County, Prince William County, and the city of Manassas in the Commonwealth of Virginia shall be available for the use of the Potomac Valley Swimming and Virginia Swimming LSCs and their respective member clubs, and both LSCs may sanction swimming events in these pools under their own rules and regulations.

This would create a sort of overlapping LSC structure where both LSCs would be able to sanction facilities under their own rules.

Other proposals on the docket, which have already been approved by the LSCs, include the merger of the Lake Erie Swimming and Ohio Swimming LSCs, and moving Woodbury County, Iowa from the Midwestern Swimming LSC to the Iowa LSC.

Woodbury County is located in the far western portion of the state, bordering Nebraska (which is mostly part of the MW LSC). About 100,000 people live in the county, most of whom live in Sioux City, Iowa’s 4th-largest city.

This impacts the Siouxland Wave Aquatic Team.

Other more minor proposals:

• Updating the definition of disabilities to include visual disabilities.
• Allowing the starter or stroke and turn judge to disqualify a swimmer for an illegal starting position, even if the race is allowed to proceed (probably most relevant to backstroke races).
• The only proposal that the rules committee recommended against improving, which was a proposal to disqualify athletes who have surpassed session, daily, or overall meet entry limits in entries beyond the limit. This was an attempt to provide a uniform resolution to these issues.
• A proposal to allow counters in the 400 meter free in short course meters racing.
• There is also a proposal to update the 12 & under techsuit ban slightly from “any suit with woven fabric” to “any suit which includes any woven fabric,” which seems to be just to make the wording more clear.
• One proposal would close a loophole. While 12 & under meets are ascribed to be limited to 4 hours or less per session, a new proposal would only allow 12 & unders to swim a single prelim session and the related finals.
• Updating the 10 year/10 year+ athlete requirements on the Coach Advisory Council to “Actively Engaged Athlete representatives” appointed by the Athlete Advisory Council.