Olympic officials gave up on cleaning the green-tinged water in one of the pools at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Center.
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A contractor added 80 litres of hydrogen peroxide to each of the diving and water polo pools last Friday but organisers said they only found out on Tuesday when the water in the diving pool turned green from its typical blue during the women’s 10 metre platform final.
Mario Andrade, spokesman for Rio’s organising committee, said they had made a decision to go for a more “radical measure”, choosing to drain the pool and fill it with new water.
“Due to the insertion of 120 athletes in the diving tank and the extended period of time the athletes of water polo stay in the water, the amount of organics in the water grew”.
Organisers said the “radical” step to drain the larger 50m pool is because it is necessary for the synchronised swimming competition for judges to see the athletes perform under water. He said it should be completed by 7 a.m. Sunday, four hours before the scheduled start of the first synchronized swimming event of the games. Pool turns bright green in Rio%INLINE%.
The decision to drain and refill the pool comes hours after Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada told reporters “extreme measures” would be taken.
Nascimento says hydrogen peroxide may be to blame for the green coloring.
“Of course it’s an embarrassment”, said Andrada. “The visibility is good, not ideal, but … at least the water is a normal temperature”.
Luckily for them, divers have been taking it in their stride.
The water problems had limited the swimmers to just one practice session in the pool when the water was unusually cold.
For almost a week now a mystery has surrounded the Olympics and it wasn’t what country would reign supreme: why did those pools turn green?
“We are going to grab the water from the warm-up pool, drain the water out of the competition pool and insert the water from the warm-up pool into the competition pool”. “This was probably the only issue that we were unable to solve quickly”.
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Twenty water polo games have been played at Maria Lenk since the water began to change. While some players complained about a burning sensation in their eyes, apparently caused by extra chlorine being added to the water in an attempt to clean it, no major issues were reported. The changing color was the result of increased alkaline levels, officials said.
