“This was probably the only issue that we were unable to solve quickly”, he told reporters.
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The operation should be finished by 07:00 on Sunday, Nascimento said – four hours before synchronised swimming gets underway with the duet free routine.
“We can not confine the Olympic spirit and the transformation that the Olympics bring to a city to a single area and when we prepared the Games we chose to spread … the benefits around the city”, Andrada said.
The chemical, which is used to keep pools clean, neutralised the chlorine that organizers were using to keep the pool blue, allowing algae to flourish, they said.
“This will be done overnight and we will start preparing the competition pool for synchronised swimming, which is due to start at 11am”.
The larger pool had been used for water polo preliminary games.
In a surprise press conference at the venue, Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada presented yet another explanation for the unusual mutating of the pool water from crystal blue to algae-green this week: on August 5, 80 liters of hydrogen peroxide were mistakenly put in the pool manually by a local contractor, which neutralized the chlorine’s ability to kill organics.
The diving pool will remain in use as officials say there are no health risks to athletes.
The green pools became a huge headache for organisers of the Games, who have been the butt of “swamp” jokes among millions of spectators, both in the stands and from those watching on television. Instead, they began draining it Saturday and planned to transfer almost 1 million gallons of clear water from a nearby practice pool in time for the start of synchronized swimming. Despite days of clean-up efforts by the organizers, the water in the diving pool was still green. “We learned a painful lesson the hard way”.
Dirty water is now expected to be disposed of using the city’s sewage system.
Green water from the diving pool will be drained and replaced with water from the warmup pool, officials said in a news conference Saturday.
Others had a different view.
“Today was pretty gross”, Australia’s Maddison Keeney said after Saturday’s competition.
“You’re standing on the stairs and you can’t see your feet, one and half metres down”. I just try to close my eyes and close my mouth.
That can’t exactly happen if the water’s green.
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“We can never be certain because the chemicals that made the green are already gone”, said Nascimento. “The embarrassment won’t last forever”.
