Rio 2016. Polluted water: at the Olympics, swimmers keep their mouths shut
Rights — di Andrea Barolini
Three Olympic Games events will be held in Guanabara Bay, where high levels of pollution have been detected. “Athletes risk falling ill”.
Rio 2016. Polluted water: at the Olympics, swimmers keep their mouths shut
Three Olympic Games events will be held in Guanabara Bay, where high levels of pollution have been detected. “Athletes risk falling ill”.
Guanabara Bay, which will host three official events at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in Brazil, is extremely polluted. So much so that Daniel Becker, a doctor contacted by the New York Times, declared — in no uncertain terms whatsoever — that "athletes will be competing literally in a sea of human excrement, and risk falling ill as a result" due to the presence of potentially harmful microorganisms.
Swimming, sailing and windsurfing events planned for Guanabara
In front of Rio's seemingly idyllic beaches, then, the water quality is anything but idyllic. And yet during the Games — which will take place from 5 to 21 August — it is precisely in this stretch of water that competitors in the open-water events (swimming, sailing and windsurfing) will face off. "All we can do is keep our mouths shut when the waves come," said Afrodite Zegers, a member of the Dutch sailing team, with resigned irony.
Nor is this entirely unexpected, given that back in 2015, during a sailing competition held at the same venue, organisers recorded nausea and diarrhoea that affected as many as a quarter of the competing athletes. For their part, however, the Brazilian officials in charge of the Olympic Games are playing it down: according to them, the areas that will host the events comply with the standards set by the World Health Organization.
The 4 billion dollars for the clean-up were never allocated
The fact remains that the promises made seven years ago by the authorities of the Latin American nation have not been kept. They had assured that at least 80% of the waters of Guanabara Bay would be decontaminated. Instead, against the four billion dollars announced to carry out the massive anti-pollution operation, only 170 million were ultimately allocated.
Scientific analyses by the University of Rio, cited by the American newspaper, also raise the alarm over two stretches of coastline bordering the bay, which during the Olympic Games will certainly be visited by thousands of tourists and spectators.