So far attempts to make the pools blue again have failed, and with the sycnhronized swimming due to get started, drastic measures are being taken to ensure the water polo pool is usable.
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Rio de Janeiro: Rio Olympics organisers have admitted the wrong chemicals were put in the pool at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre on the day of the opening ceremony, turning it a murky green colour that has amused and baffled the world.
Mario Andrada, Rio Organizing committee (l) and Gustavo Nascimento, Rio director of venue management (r) during Saturday news conference on green water, August 13, 2016, Rio de Janeiro.
Replacing the water in time for the early-morning training and competition at 11 a.m. local time was a significant challenge – the pool holds almost 1 million gallons.
Gustavo Nascimento, the venue director for the Games who joined Andrada at Saturday’s news conference, fielded most of the technical questions, but made clear at the outset that he was not a chemist or a medical professional. Despite the complaints, the organizers stressed that they are conducting water quality tests and that the divers’ health is not at risk.
He blamed the contractor for mistakenly dumping 160 litres of hydrogen peroxide into the pools late last week, causing an adverse reaction when it mixed with chlorine.
“This is a way of cleaning swimming pools but you’re not supposed to combine it with chlorine”, said Nascimento. “The temperature was little bit better for us and it’s a little bit clearer underwater, which also helped”. However, earlier this week, experts disputed the idea that the water was green because of algae.
Rio Olympics officials said they have finally solved the mystery of why the waters in two competition pools turned emerald green this week.
So what caused the green water in the first place?
A spokesman for Rio 2016 labelled the ordeal an “embarrassment”, although they refused to confirm who the independent contractor was that was responsible for the dump of hydrogen peroxide.
The pool, which holds roughly 1 million gallons of water, was drained overnight and filled Sunday before synchronized swimming events began.
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Water in the water polo pool had returned to blue by Sunday. Those may not be good at disinfecting pools, but they still may be picked up by monitoring systems. He said it’s a painful lesson for them to learn.
