FINA is the international body that governs the sports of swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming (and some related activities). Every four years FINA review their rules and their latest changes took effect from 15 September 2009.
There have been some changes you might want to know about - and there is a link at the foot of this page to the Rules on the FINA website in case you want to read the details.
Whenever possible at the Olympic Games, World Championships and World Cups there will be 11 judges instead of the present 9 judges. There will still be 5 synchro judges but there will now be 3 execution judges for each diver. The high and low execution awards for each diver will be discarded and also the high and low synchro awards, leaving 2 execution and 3 synchro awards to be used for calculating the score as at present.
The rule about forward dives in synchro springboard events has been clarified. All forward facing dives must be done with a running approach.
On both springboard and platform, Men will perform 6 dives from 5 groups and Women will perform 5 dives from 5 groups.
The formulae for calculating the DDs of some twisting dives have been adjusted and the effect will be to change some DDs up or down by 0.1 or 0.2
The dives 209 and 309 have been added to the official list and some other dives are now allowed in new positions. The maximum DD on the published list is now 4.8 but to get that you will have to do a 309B on 3m or 7½m. Please do not try this at home! The full details are:
Up until now divers have been solely responsible for the submission, signature and accuracy of their sheets, but in future both the diver and the diver's representative will be responsible for submitting and altering sheets, and must both sign the sheets.
In a running dive, if a diver double bounces on the end of the springboard the Referee shall declare it a failed dive. Also, the final step into the hurdle must be from one foot or the Referee shall declare it a failed dive.
There are a lot of minor corrections, re-wording and re-ordering of the Rules to clarify some of the previous ambiguities.