Technical officers and staff members of the Lenk Aquatic Center watch as the process of draining the pool where the 2016 Summer Olympics synchronized swimming competition is to be held, started on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The pool will be refilled with the water of the nearby practice pool.
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The water will be changed prior to the synchronised swimming because both competitors and judges need to be able to see what is happening beneath the surface.
“We’ve been trying for four days”. American diver Abby Johnston has dubbed it “the swamp”.
The larger pool had been used for water polo preliminary games.
“We’re going to drain the water from the competition pool and we’re going to pump the water from the warm-up pool into the competition pool”, he added.
“This (replacement operation) will be done overnight”. They assured the athletes that the water “wasn’t dangerous” and the diving competitions continued without a hitch.
“Of course it is an embarrassment because we are hosting the Olympic Games”, Rio 2016 communications director Mario Andrada said when announcing the measure today.
Olympic officials weren’t exactly forthcoming on what made the water turn green, though those who clean swimming pools quickly identified it as algae.
“We were not consulted; our contractor’s failure is our failure”.
Pool venues manager Gustavo Nascimento explained exactly what went wrong.
While the one million gallons of water in the water polo pool will be replaced, the diving pool will remain as it is.
Andrada said a group of swimmers had risked missing their races after a bus driver meant to have taken them to the Olympic pool misheard the acronym used for the site and drove them instead to the athletics stadium on the other side of town.
Despite finding an answer to the water’s color, Olympic officials said they would not be able to clean the water quickly, and will begin draining the pool on Saturday, transferring almost 1 million gallons from another nearby pool.
The organisers will keep the water in the diving pool and continue treatment, as it did not seem to concern the athletes as much, they said.
“We’ve got to be ready for everything”, added Britain’s Grace Reid, who finished eighth in her first Olympic final.
Andrada apologized for the embarrassing incident, acknowledging Rio organizers were slow to address the problem and subsequent attempts to do so were ineffective.
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“I hope we will be all OK and I hope they can fix it soon”.
