Rio de Janeiro // The waters where Olympians will compete in swimming and boating events next summer in Brazil are rife with human sewage and present a serious health risk for athletes, as well as for visitors to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
An Associated Press investigation found dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from sewage in venues where athletes will compete in the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic water sports.
In the first independent comprehensive testing for both viruses and bacteria at the Olympic sites, the AP conducted four rounds of tests starting in March. The results have alarmed competitors training in Rio, some of whom have already have fallen ill with fevers, vomiting and diarrhoea.
“This is by far the worst water quality we’ve ever seen in our sailing careers,” said Ivan Bulaja, a coach for the Austrian team, which has spent months training on the Guanabara Bay.
“I am quite sure if you swim in this water and it goes into your mouth or nose that quite a lot of bad things are coming inside your body.”
Sailor David Hussl has already fallen ill. “I’ve had high temperatures and problems with my stomach,” he said. “It’s always one day completely in bed and then usually not sailing for two or three days.”
Water pollution has long plagued Brazil’s urban areas, where most sewage is not collected, let alone treated. In Rio, much of the waste runs through open-air ditches to fetid streams and rivers that feed the Olympic water sites and blight the city’s picture postcard beaches.
Dr Richard Budgett, the medical director for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said after seeing the findings that the IOC and Brazilian authorities should stick to their programme of testing only for bacteria to determine whether the water is safe for athletes, as that is the accepted norm globally.
“We’ve had reassurances from the World Health Organisation and others that there is no significant risk to athlete health,” he said.
Brazilian authorities pledged that a major overhaul of the city’s waterways would be among the Olympics’ most significant legacies. But the stench of raw sewage still greets travellers arriving at Rio’s international airport. Prime beaches remain deserted because the surf is thick with putrid sludge, and periodic die-offs leave the Olympic lake littered with rotting fish.
Leonardo Daemon, coordinator of water quality monitoring for the state’s environmental agency, said officials are strictly following Brazilian regulations on water quality, which are all based on bacteria levels.
“What would be the standard that should be followed for the quantity of virus? Because the presence or absence of virus in the water ... needs to have a standard, a limit,” he said. “You don’t have a standard for the quantity of virus in relation to human health when it comes to contact with water.”
Olympic hopefuls will be diving into Copacabana’s surf today during a triathlon Olympic qualifier event, while rowers take to the lake’s water beginning Wednesday for the 2015 World Rowing Junior Championships.
Test events for sailing and marathon swimming take place next month.
More than 10,000 athletes from 205 nations are expected to compete next year. Nearly 1,400 of them will be sailing in the waters near Marina da Gloria in Guanabara Bay, swimming off Copacabana beach, and canoeing and rowing on the brackish waters of the Rodrigo de Freitas Lake.
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