Changes to the rules of backstroke and breaststroke over that last 30 years?
813353
I don't know about all the changes over the last 30 years, but I do know a few more recent ones.  With back they are allowing flip turns now.  With breast, they allow one dolphin kick during your pull out, you're head can now be completely submerged during the stroke, and when you do your turn you are now allowed to have your hands on different plains as long as they touch at the same time.
1115199
Swimming has been known since prehistoric times. Drawings from the stone age were found in "the cave of swimmers" near Wadi Sora (or Sura) in the southwestern part of Egypt. Written references date back up to 2000 B.C., including Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible (Ezekiel 47:5, Acts 27:42, Isaiah 25:11), Beowulf, and other sagas. In 1538 Nicolas Wynman, German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book "Colymbetes". Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using breaststroke. The front crawl, then called the trudgen was introduced in 1873 by John Arthur Trudgen, copying it from Native Americans.\n\nSwimming was part of the first modern Olympic games in 1896 in Athens. In 1900 backstroke was included as an Olympic Event. In 1902 the trudgen was improved by Richard Cavill, using the flutter kick. In 1908, the world swimming association Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) was formed. Butterfly was first a variant of Breaststroke, until it was accepted as a separate style in 1952.\n\nCompetitive swimming is swimming with the goal to maximize the speed of the swimming. Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century, and currently comprises 32 events, 16 male events, and 16 female events, at the Summer Olympic Games. Competitive swimming's international governing body is FINA (Federation International De Natation) International Swimming Federation. It is currently being debated whether or not to instate the 1500 m freestyle as part of the female events. Currently, the longest female event is the 800 m freestyle.\n\nThe four competitive strokes are the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. These strokes can be swum individually or together in an individual medley (IM). The order IM goes in is: 1) Butterfly 2) Backstroke 3) Breaststroke 4) Freestyle. There is also the medley relay in which the order is: : 1) Backstroke 2) Breaststroke 3) Butterfly 4) Freestyle. Each of the four swimmers in the relay swims one stroke for a quarter of a predetermined length.\n\nIn the United States, many communities sponsor competitive swimming leagues (for children and young people aged 4-18), made up of individual swim teams, which may range in size from a few dozen swimmers to several hundred swimmers. These leagues for the most part adhere to recognized swimming rules, swim the standard strokes, but swim shorter lengths as events in swim meets. These leagues are usually active in the warmer months, and are not directly associated with a national or world swim organization. However, some swimmers who begin their competitive swimming experience on such a local swim team go on to join a nationally-governed team, on their path to an Olympic berth later.
637469
Check this out:\n\nhttp://www.forbes.com/2004/06/23/04athletesland.html
298713
Swimming is a sport that is known to many different people.It is easy and not very hard to learn.
22293
If you are a USA swimmer, this change brings the rules in line with FINA rules. The governing bodies seem to want swimmers to be good at swimming the stroke, not streamlining across the pool. \nCheck the rules section at usaswimming.org\nIf you are in another organization, check on their web site for other information.
565019
The major changes has been the use of hands, let serves, rally scoring, and the libreo.\n\nServe Receive -- During the fifties and sixties, you could receive serve with your hands. From the sixties to the eighties, this was banned.  Since the nineties, it became legal, once again.\n\nBlocking -- A half a century ago, you could not penetrate the net on the block. Now you can. Two decades ago, you could block the serve. Now, you can't.\n\nTwo decades ago, the antennea was a ball's length outside the court. Now they have moved in, and align with the court.\n\nLibero - a non-rotating, non-serving backrow player.\n\nLet serve - serves may touch the net. Previously, if a serve touched the net, it was a foul, and loss of serve.\n\nRally scoring -- every volley results in a point. Previously, one could only score a point if one had the serve. Otherwise, if one won a volley (say that five times fast) one did not score a point, but instead "won" back the serve from his opponent (a "side-out"), and with it, an opportunity to score a point in the next volley.
859618
a few years back, there was an olympic swimming event that had a european nation that was new to the olympics (at least in that event). it was one of the prequalifying runs, and the guy swimming was nowhere near finishing in time for the event, but he just wouldnt stop, and the crowd went NUTS. they didnt care where he was from, they didnt care that he wasnt going to win, they just were cheering on a guy who was clearly pushing himself, and didnt give in. even when he knew he lost, he was going to finish for him, and his ppl. THAT was a great moment in my book.
707435
1991, I believe, but it has been updated, clarified, and amended since then.\n\nGoogle the entire term for more info.
502860
The sport is absolutely exploding in popularity.  Races in my area have nearly doubled in size due to demand in the past 3 to 4 years.  Every year there are more and more people catching the triathlon bug.  I use to competitively swim and I can tell you that triathlons are so much more fun.  You get the joy of competing in three sports at the same time, there are many different levels of distances for all skill levels, and its an all around beautiful sport to compete in and watch.  There is nothing like hitting 35-40 miles per hour on a bike with wheels no thicker than your pinkie finger.
998898
This season the WNBA will introduce three new rules that are sure to affect the style, productivity and speed of the game. \nThe three-point line will be moved from 19' 9" to the international distance of 20' 6¼", and the lane will be widened from 12' to the NBA width of 16'. In addition, the 30-second shot clock will be reset to 20 seconds (as opposed to 30 seconds under the previous rule) when a defensive foul or other defensive violation occurs with less than 20 seconds remaining on the shot clock, and will be left unchanged when a defensive violation occurs with 20 seconds or more remaining on the shot clock.
548135
BASKETBALL, VOLLEYBALL, SWIMMING
19544
There used to be a Tour Feminin back in the 1980s. It was contested by national teams, and was run concurrently with the last two weeks of the men's Tour on parts of the same courses (over greatly reduced distances).\n\nEventually, it moved to a separate date on the calendar. It's now held at the end of June, prior to the start of the men's Tour.
96829
That's a good question. These Winter Olympics in Turin are the first I've seen of the new scoring system and it seems to be working fine. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this new system designed more to prevent the ugly cheating scandal involving the French and Russian judges at the pairs competition during the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City? If it's made that sort of rubbish impossible to be repeated, then I think it's a big step forward.
644143
Athletics or track and field (sprint events) and swimming.
1046549
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstroke
1046566
Do you mean the new format with 32 teams divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each? Where the top two finishers of each team would then take part in direct elimination games until the final?\n\nIf that's what's you're asking then the change happened in France  1998. Previously, between 1986 and 1994, there were 24 teams divided in 6 groups of which the first two would qualify for the round of sixteen, together with the 4 best third finishers among all groups.\n\nIn 1982 it was even different, with two group stages, after which the remaining 4 teams would face off in the semifinals.\n\nIf instead, you meant in which year the actual trophy awarded changed to the one that will be awarded on July 9th, then the answer it's even easier: the new trophy was first assigned during the 1974 World Cup in Germany. The previous trophy had been won by Brazil in 1970 for they claimed victory three times. Incidentally, whomever had won that final in 1970 would had taken the old trophy home, since Italy had previously claimed two times as well.
558581
James E. Counsilman was the head swim coach for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and his book "The Science of Swimming" discussed training of various world class swimmers from this time period.\n\nI believe the successful training programs of this time emphasized long slow distance and fartleks .... moderate paced activity with intervals of speed work. \n\nBest wishes !