The NCAA Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Committee has agreed to follow four major rules changes recently approved by Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA), the international governing body for swimming and diving.

Committee members made the decision during a discussion of playing rules at the group's annual meeting in Indianapolis July 27-28. The changes affect the backstroke, breaststroke and diving.

In the breaststroke, a single downward dolphin kick will be allowed while the competitor is submerged at the start and at the turn.

For backstroke, a swimmer now may be wholly submerged during the last stroke of the finish. Also, it will be legal for competitors to have their feet or toes break the surface of the water at the start of the backstroke. However, standing in or on the gutter or curling the toes over the lip of the gutter still is not permitted.

"We have tried to keep the NCAA rules as close to FINA as possible in terms of the actual strokes," said John Lyons, head swimming coach at La Salle University and chair of the committee. "Our student-athletes train outside of the academic year under USA Swimming or FINA rules, and there is no need to create confusion, if unnecessary."

Voluntary dives were eliminated from FINA formats under the new rules, so the committee has now included a diving program option that allows for institutions to choose to eliminate the voluntaries during dual meets and championships.

The changes from FINA and all of the other rules changes from the annual meeting must be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel during its August 26 meeting before being implemented in the rules book.

Besides the rules changes to conform with FINA, diving dominated discussions at the meeting, leading to four other major rules changes. A new format option will be available to allow for six optional dives to be performed by men and women. The previous rule allowed for six optional dives for men and five optional dives for women.

The diving referee will instruct the announcer to reduce each judge's award by two points if the competitor does the listed dive on the incorrect platform. The penalty used to be a failed dive, which some people thought was too punitive.

The use of temporary visual aids (for example, towels on the tower or chamois in the water, which are aids in spotting)will be considered assistance, which is illegal.

In swimming, the whistle may now replace some of the verbal commands used to begin races for both the forward and backstroke starts. Whistle commands are used in USA Swimming and international competition.

Finally, Rule 3-4.1 on entry procedure will be rewritten to recognize the use of computer entries and card entries and clarify the time frame when entries must be made official.

The 2006 rules book should be printed and available at the end of September and will include rules changes from the July meeting as well as the rules changes made during the committee's September 2004 meeting. The committee changed its meeting schedule, so this will be the only year that two lists of rules changes will be made to the same publication.