Take the missing strong-swimmer times , , as the latent variables. Their partners' times are . The complete-data log-likelihood is
For the E-step of the expectation-maximization algorithm, use the conditional split of two exponential times. At the old rates, with ,
This is a truncated exponential distribution, whose conditional expectation is
The displayed mean follows by integrating against the conditional density; the missing weak-swimmer mean is . As , the conditional density becomes uniform on and .
Write and . The E-step objective is
Setting its partial derivatives to zero gives the unconstrained M-step
These are eight divided by the completed expected totals for the corresponding swimmers; imputing only observed pair totals without the conditional split would not perform the E-step.
The stated ordering must also be enforced. The ordered-rate exponential M-step accepts these updates when , so . Otherwise its maximum on the closed constraint lies at
Under a strictly open constraint , a boundary optimum is only a supremum; a finite interior maximizer is not assured for every possible sample. One should report that situation rather than swap the labeled swimmer groups. Starting from positive ordered rates, iterate the E-step and constrained M-step until the parameter changes and observed log-likelihood improvement are small. EM likelihood monotonicity applies to every exact constrained M-step. No numerical swimming times are supplied, so the data-dependent updates, rather than fabricated numerical estimates, are the answer.