XPost: alt.politics.liberalism, sac.politics, rec.sport.olympics
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
The green diving pool story has gone stratospheric because it’s
funny and it’s something we can all get a handle on: green pool,
blue pool; swamp, water. That’s certainly a lot easier to grasp
than the finer points of triple inward pike half twist, which
are only put before us once every four years. But the joke has a
dark edge to it, too.
We are in the middle of the event which represents the pinnacle
of competition for the world’s best divers, the event which
they’ve focussed most of their waking hours on for at least the
last year. And yet the Rio de Janeiro Olympics organisers can
neither summon the energy nor the intelligence to offer an
explanation for the change of colour, or even see to it that the
problem is resolved.
For those nations competent in staging elite sport, every stone
would have been turned over to restore the purity of the water
and dignify the world’s best divers with the respect they
deserve. But, as Japan and Australia battled it out in the water
polo in the blue pool this morning, the green one remained, in
just the same state as we had last seen it on Tuesday night. Not
the mildest effort to rectify the problem, nor any evidence of
an attempt to do so.
To say so risks exuding that air of western superiority that the
British Olympic Association is so keen to guard against here,
but can you imagine the reaction if the pool had turned green in
London four years ago? It would have been nothing less than a
national crisis. The engineers would have been put to work
through the night – and we would have been put to work through
the night to live blog their efforts.
The Rio organisers have not even graced us with an explanation
for the change in colour. They say they've tested the water,
that there's no risk to athletes’ health and that they're
investigating further. Well, that’s ok then.
It takes minimal investigation to know that algae – living
marine creatures which multiply in warm weather – cause a pool
to turn green, and that an imbalance in the pool’s water
chemicals, poor circulation, filtration or sanitation are the
most likely reasons why algae would proliferate.
How do you solve the problem? Get a good pool brush. Loosen the
algae off the floor and sides of the pool. Then ‘shock’ the pool
with chlorine. The treatment required really is as simple as
that.
The British diver Tonia Couch made light of the problem after
she and 16-year-old partner Lois Toulson came fifth in the 10m
synchronised event on Tuesday. “It looked worse because the sun
went in,” she said. “I couldn’t see Lois when I went underneath.”
So there we have it. We reach the moment when more obscure
Olympic sports need the focus to be on the technical excellence
and panache of competitors – from board, to water and back to
the surface – so that they might draw a new generation in. And
instead, we are discussing conditions so poor that competitors
can’t even see themselves under the water.
What a humbling and crashing embarrassment. We were right all
along to have profound concerns about Rio’s competence to stage
these Olympics.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rio-2016-green-diving-pool- right-to-fear-brazil-olympic-games-a7182996.html
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