“The worldwide Sailing Federation continues to address concerns and is taking steps to ensure the health and safety of all athletes who will be competing in the upcoming Aquece Rio, Olympic test event and the Rio 2016 Olympic sailing competition”, said a statement from ISAF. Brazil government tests only for bacteria levels. However, Leonardo Daemon, manager of water quality at INEA, continued to claim that the waters are in line with Brazilian standards of water pollution, which are also based on bacteria levels. The majority of sewage is not treated and much of the raw waster runs to streams and rivers.
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Serious heart and brain diseases can even be caused by exposure to such viruses.
The water is so contaminated that in some places the levels of disease-causing viruses is up to 1.7 million times higher than the level that would be considered risky for a SoCal beach.
“We have had reassurances from the WHO (World Health Organization) and others that there is no significant risk to athlete health”.
“This is by far the worst water quality we’ve seen in our sailing careers”, said coach Ivan Bulaja from the Austrian team, who says his sailors have lost valuable training days to illness in the time they have spent on Guanabara Bay.
Several athletes who are already training for South America’s first Olympic Games have reportedly recently fallen ill with the fevers, diarrhea, and vomiting associated with the bacteria and viruses found in Rio de Janeiro’s waters.
One expert in risk assessment for waterborne viruses, Kristina Mena, estimated that by ingesting just three teaspoons of this water, athletes run a 99% risk of falling ill.
With just over a year out from the Rio Olympics Opening Ceremonies, the U.S. Olympic Committee hosted a media teleconference today featuring world champion gymnast Simone Biles, Olympic gold medaling wrestler Jordan Burroughs, and veteran Chief of Sport Performance, Alan Ashley. ISAF hopes that the power of the Olympic Games will provide a great legacy as Rio de Janeiro works to improve the state of the bay generally.
He also tested for bacterial fecal coliforms, used by most nations as the guide for determining whether recreational water is safe because the tests have long been cheap and easy to carry out. And starting next week, hundreds of athletes will take to the waters in Olympic trial events. Griffith examined the protocols, methodology and results of the AP tests. “It is water from toilets, showers and what people throw in the sink, all mixed up, that goes into the water at the beaches”. “Those kinds of things would be shut down immediately if found [in the US]”.
AP report it is not paying the the virologist, Fernando Spilki, for the testing.
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Spilki tested for three types of human adenovirus, rotavirus, and enterovirus. That depends on immunity and many other factors.
