The convention is for the rank in athletic events to be given as the position in the heat and for swimming events to give the overall rank, due to the differences in how next round qualifiers are decided in the two sports. In swimming qualifing competitors are decided only on a time basis, so if, e.g., heat 1 is is faster than heat 2 it is possible that all the competitors from heat 1 and none from heat 2 would get through to the next round. An example is Men's 50m freestyle. However in athletics qualifiers for the next round are decided by the first X athletes in each heat getting through, i.e. at least X athletes from every heat will get into the next round. Therefore I suspect all the swimming ranks in this article need correcting. Basement12 (T.C) 11:50, 23 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
