Rio Olympics 2016: Murky green pool back to blue for synchronised swimming
Goodbye, green. Hello again, blue. Hope you can stick around awhile.
Synchronised swimmers were greeted by clear blue water in the competition pool at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre on Sunday (local time) after officials worked through the night to replace murky green water that's become a big embarrassment for Rio Games organisers.
Replacing the water in time for the early-morning training, and competition at 11am (2am NZ Time), was a significant challenge, because the pool holds some three million litres of water.
But divers were training as expected on Sunday morning.
READ MORE:
* Mystery as blue pool turns green
* Organisers come clean on water woes
* Rio 2016 drains pool to clean water
Both the main competition pool and diving pool turned green after blunder finally admitted by Rio 2016 organisers on Saturday (local time).
It was revealed that 80 litres of hydrogen-peroxide was 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.
As a consequence, the electronic system that controls the amount of the chlorine in the water was "confused".
In the past week, several water players have complained about how much their eyes have stung during matches.
It was so bad one Australian men's player needed to have his eyes flushed out at halftime in the 10-8 loss to Serbia, although Australia's women's players said it was less of an issue in their 10-3 win over Brazil in their final pool match the next day.
On Sunday (NZ Time), Olympic officials gave up on trying to clean the green-tinged water in the main pool, instead draining it, with plans to transfer nearly 3.8 million litres of clear water from a nearby practice pool in time for the start of synchronised swimming.
Mario Andrada, a spokesman for Rio 2016, said the "radical measure" was necessary to ensure clear water for both judges and competitors during an event that requires swimmers to spend much of their time underwater.
He stressed again that the kale-coloured water posed no risk to the health of the athletes. The diving pool will still be used, although the water remains green and murky.
"Of course it is an embarrassment because we are hosting the Olympic Games," Andrada said. "It should be light blue, transparent. We could have done better in fixing it quickly. We learned a painful lesson the hard way."
There were plenty of snarky posts on social media. After the diving pool was closed for a scheduled practice session Friday, Germany's Patrick Hausding posted a couple of pictures, one holding his nose with the caption "Good morning from the green lake!"
Organisers have insisted there are no health risks posed by the discoloured water seen in the pool during an earlier water polo competition and in a different diving pool.
Still, visibility underwater is a major issue in synchronised swimming, where competitors spend lots of time underwater and need to be able to see their teammates.
- Stuff and agencies
