Section 6: Scoring
- Placings are determined by the Chief Referee from the Automatic Officiating Equipment where available; times and placings recorded by this equipment take precedence over Finish Judges' and Timekeepers' records (Articles 12.3.3.1–12.3.3.2 of Part Three).
- If Automatic Officiating Equipment is not used or fails, official time is drawn from three Timekeepers' watches — using the two matching times if one differs, the intermediate time if all three differ, or the average of two working watches if only two function (Articles 12.4.1–12.4.1.1.4 of Part Three).
- Where a Video Assistant Referee system is in place, a Video Review Judge reviews recorded images to support the Chief Referee's decisions on any reported infraction (Articles 12.5.1–12.5.2, 2.21.1–2.21.2 of Part Three).
- In the 3 km Knockout Sprint, advancement between rounds functions as the scoring mechanism — top-ten (or top-twenty, single-heat) finishers progress round to round until a single Round Three final determines the event result (Articles 7.3.5–7.3.7, 7.4.6–7.4.7 of Part Three).
- Individual race: lowest elapsed time wins. World Aquatics maintains sport-specific World Aquatics Rankings compiled from competition results, which are used, among other things, to seed the 3 km Knockout Sprint (Article 7.3.4 of Part Three; Article 2.197 of Part Nine).