There are some upcoming rules for the FAI that are slated to have their final review and potentially passed at the plenary meeting coming up in February. These include some pretty big changes to our courses and rules for the speed and distance events. Here’s the short and skinny on the potential new rules. I’ve also included how we’ll be adapting them into the SWOOPLEAGUE pro and amateur classes.

Speed: The new speed course will be a straight course measuring 50 meters long(5-5 foot tall gates).  Pro competitors will be required to maintain contact with the water for the first 4 gates(36 meters). Amateur competitors will be timed on the same 5 foot tall- 50 meter course, but dragging will not be required.

Distance:  There are two big changes here.  First, pro competitors will be required to drag the entry gate.  Second, all competitors will be required to stay below 5 feet until they are 50 meters down the course. ie no popping up  til you’re down course.  This change should do two things.  First, it should shorten up the overall distances by requiring a controlled drag and limiting the competitors ability to climb right away.  Second, it should make this event a bit safer by keeping competitors from climbing 10+ feet up in the air and hence reducing some of the blisteringly hard landings we’ve seen lately.

Accuracy: There are no changes slated for the accuracy event at the Pro level.  We’ll make one small change to the amateur class at SWOOPLEAGUE.  Last year, amateur competitors had to eclipse the first 10 foot gate to get any score at all, and eclipse the 5 foot gates to earn the water points.  This year the first 10 foot gate will be removed and replaced with the “infinity gate” we used for this event years ago.  Basically amateur competitors will still need to fly between the first entry gate to enter the course(ie, no hard carving in after the entry gates), but their height does  not matter.  They still need to eclipse the 5 footers to score the water points.

Records: The implementation of these new rules would cause the distance and speed records currently on the books to be retired.  In escence, wiping the slate clean for new State, National, and World records to be set.