The water was originally green but has since turned cloudy blue.
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During a press conference Saturday, Rio 2016 officials added to a growing list of theories about the greening water. We’ve been guided by health experts from FINA and Rio 2016 all the way through.
One week ago, the waters at pools in the Maria Lenk Aquatic Center had turned green.
“We changed the water of the synchronised swimming pool, the big pool”, Rio 2016 organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada said Sunday.
Organizers have insisted there are no health risks posed by the discolored water seen in the pool during and earlier water polo competition and in a different diving pool.
According to report, the diving pool was back to its normal color.
American Abby Johnston, who also qualified for the final, said her “chemistry brain was going ‘what?'” when told about the hydrogen peroxide dump. However, the water in the pool for synchronized swimming and water polo was a bit bluer and lighter.
“It’s so green. But, we got a personal best score, so maybe we should ask for a green pool from now on”. He said it’s a painful lesson for them to learn.
However, the diving well was not drained.
Finally admitting their error after a week of complaints and mystery during the water polo and diving events, officials will now transfer nearly four million litres of water from one of the warm-up pools into the main competition pool so the synchronised swimming competition can start on Monday morning AEST.
The draining and transfer is expected to take 10 hours, but officials said they hoped to have it ready for the synchronized swimming competition. That sport was already scheduled to move to the 15,000-seat Olympic Aquatics Stadium after the final session of swimming Saturday night.
Olympics officials revealed on Saturday that chemicals added to the pool on August 5 had the effect of neutralizing the chlorine in the pool and allowed “organic compounds”, such as algae, to grow. Olympics officials did not want to blame a specific individually, but they did say that it looks like the hydrogen peroxide and been applied by a local pool maintenance worker.
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.
The dirty water will reportedly be discarded through the city’s sewage system.
Olympic synchronized swimmers must have breathed a sigh of relief when they walked into the Maria Lenk Aquatics Center Sunday morning. They said the water in the warrmup pool is in good condition. I just try to close my eyes and close my mouth.
There were plenty of snarky posts on social media.
The New York Times discovered the truth behind the oddly-colored Olympic diving and water polo pools at the Rio Olympics. We could have done better in fixing it quickly.
For the longest time, officials in Rio did not know why. A backup platform is set to be brought in for the women’s 10-kilomter race Monday. “The warm-up water is in ideal condition with aesthetics, visibility and transparency for the athletes to perform at their best”.
Rio organizers said days before the Games opened that only 15 percent of the signage had been installed at venues.
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“The reason why [this happened], we haven’t solved it”.
