Rio de Janeiro (dpa) – Rio organizers stepped up their battle against the unusual green colour that has plagued their open-air Olympic pools, as amusement over the problem turned into mounting criticism Saturday.
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Olympic officials were working through the night to drain green-tinged water out of a pool at the troubled Maria Lenk Aquatics Center, and hoping they can pump in almost 1 million gallons of clean water for synchronized swimming.
Rio communications chief Mario Andrada said a “more radical approach” was being taken to prepare the water. The water should be light blue and transparent. “This was an issue we could not solve quickly [but] we need to have water looking the way it should look”. “We learned painful lessons the hard way”. USA diver Abby Johnston called the pool “a swamp”.
Its water was being changed on Saturday afternoon, following water polo competitions in the morning and ahead of synchronized swimming events on Sunday. The one used by water polo teams will be drained since it won’t be needed after Saturday, while the synchronized swimmers will continue to have use of their practice pool.
Others had a different view.
It was revealed that 80 litres of hydrogen-peroxide were put in the pool on the day of the opening ceremony on August 5 – a chemical that should never be combined with chlorine, as any pool owner knows. No one has complained of any problems diving into the water, though there have been plenty of snarky posts on social media. On Friday, a planned diving practice session had to be called off to give officials more time to clean the water.
This included his memorable answer that “chemistry is not an exact science” when asked for an explanation.
“We have a second platform to replace the first one and if the second platform has the same problem then we will use another system, that is being prepared now”, Andrada said. “The embarrassment won’t last forever”.
One piece from the shattered platform washed up on the famous beach at Copacabana.
Twenty water polo games have been played at Maria Lenk since the water began to change.
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. “If you’re a competitor like we all are, if you’re here for the right reasons, you’re not anxious about that”.
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