How are swimming races timed, and what if two swimmers record the same time?

• The equipment: it records each athlete's time and, from the times, "the winner and all placings".
• Hundredths: it records "to an accuracy of one hundredth (1/100) of a second", and times are displayed to the same accuracy.
• Equal times: "If two or more Athletes achieve equal times, those Athletes will be determined to have equal placing."
• Precedence: its times and placings "will be presumed to be accurate and will take precedence" over those of timekeepers and finish judges.
• If it misses a swimmer: the referee puts together the automatic times with those from the back-up system or the timekeepers. A swimmer with an automatic time keeps their order relative to the others who have one.
• With watches only: two timekeepers time each lane. If their watches differ, the official time is the average, with any thousandth dropped and no rounding.
• Both watches fail: the athlete may be offered a re-swim.
• A disqualified swimmer: no time or placing is recorded or announced.
• Across heats: the order after the heats is worked out by comparing the official times of all the swimmers.
• Relay splits: the times at 50 m and 100 m of each team's first swimmer are recorded and published.

A time for part of a race is a split. The timing system is the automatic officiating equipment of the glossary.

A pool can be built to within a centimetre over 50 m, and no closer in every lane. A swimmer covers a few millimetres in a thousandth of a second, so timing finer than a hundredth would be measuring the pool, not the swimmers. Sharing the place is the honest result when the equipment cannot separate them.