"What you have there is basically raw sewage"
August 3, 2015 9:35 AM   Subscribe

Olympic teams to swim, boat in Rio's filth

An AP analysis of water quality revealed dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from human sewage in Olympic and Paralympic venues — results that alarmed international experts and dismayed competitors training in Rio, some of whom have already fallen ill with fevers, vomiting and diarrhea.
posted by poffin boffin (43 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
"If I were going to be in the Olympics," said Griffith, the California water expert, "I would probably go early and get exposed and build up my immunity system to these viruses before I had to compete, because I don't see how they're going to solve this sewage problem."

Charming. The Olympics have become a health hazard for those competing.
posted by hippybear at 9:48 AM on August 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


The Rodrigo de Freitas Lake, which was largely cleaned up in recent years, was thought be safe for rowers and canoers. Yet AP tests found its waters to be among the most polluted for Olympic sites, with results ranging from 14 million adenoviruses per liter on the low end to 1.7 billion per liter at the high end.

By comparison, water quality experts who monitor beaches in Southern California become alarmed if they see viral counts reaching 1,000 per liter.


Wow.
posted by vacapinta at 9:53 AM on August 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


Sadly, pollution isn't an issue until it impacts on our elite athletes, there are millions of people around the world that deal with this every day....
posted by HuronBob at 9:54 AM on August 3, 2015 [17 favorites]


This is why Boston should have hosted the Olympics 40 years ago, not this year.
posted by ocschwar at 9:57 AM on August 3, 2015


"If I were going to be in the Olympics," said Griffith, the California water expert, "I would probably go early and get exposed and build up my immunity system to these viruses before I had to compete, because I don't see how they're going to solve this sewage problem."

'California water expert' must have special meaning I am unfamiliar with because that is not really how you do it. UNLESS YOU ARE INSANE.
posted by srboisvert at 10:03 AM on August 3, 2015 [9 favorites]


If the Olympics is going to have its own metaphor I think this is a bit too obvious.
posted by biffa at 10:11 AM on August 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


So they're up shit creek, but with paddles?
posted by resurrexit at 10:17 AM on August 3, 2015 [34 favorites]


Charming. The Olympics have become a health hazard for those competing.

That ship sailed during the smog issues in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

I'm trying to imagine what I would do if I were planning on competing in 2016, and I honestly don't know; it's a terrible situation. If you choose to compete, you're risking short-term (and potentially long-term) impacts. On the other hand, it's not like you know you'll be in top competitive form for 2020. (And on the third hand, anyone making this choice is insanely privileged to have the opportunity to choose at all.)

Clearly the correct answer is to clean up the water; it's not like this isn't a solved problem IF you are able to pour money and management into the issue. However, past cleanups suggest that they are well past the event horizon for completing the cleanup before the Olympics. The Boston Harbor cleanup took decades and lawsuits and lots of money and led to the identification of a new model of organizational failure.
posted by pie ninja at 10:21 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


However, Dr. Richard Budgett, the medical director for the International Olympic Committee, said after seeing the AP findings that the IOC and Brazilian authorities should stick to their program of testing only for bacteria to determine whether the water is safe for athletes.

"We've had reassurances from the World Health Organization and others that there is no significant risk to athlete health," he told the AP on the sidelines of an IOC meeting in Malaysia.


Man, the IOC can suck a bag of dicks
posted by angrycat at 10:25 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


Is Cholera an Olympic event?
posted by thivaia at 10:27 AM on August 3, 2015 [7 favorites]


Yes, but it's an exhibition sport and medals won't be given.
posted by hippybear at 10:29 AM on August 3, 2015 [9 favorites]


The Olympics needs to go, as of yesterday. It's hopeless. Restart it in a permanent facility somewhere if you want with a different group of people running it, but this is just ludicrously unacceptable. I feel for the athletes, but also wish they had the ability to refuse to compete under such circumstances and bring it to a halt.
posted by emjaybee at 10:29 AM on August 3, 2015 [10 favorites]


It's time to remember that the modern Olympics started as a traveling festival in order to spread the gospel of amateur athletics.

That job has been done. The whole world has heard that gospel. Many nations have taken up an interest in sports. (And then there's India. Beautiful, glorious India. A billion people not giving any fucks about sports. I loved visiting that country.)

Time for the festival to set up a permanent home and be done.
posted by ocschwar at 10:30 AM on August 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


Man, the IOC can suck a bag of dicks


A bag of dicks marinated in Copacabana beach.
posted by ocschwar at 10:31 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


(And then there's India. Beautiful, glorious India. A billion people not giving any fucks about sports. I loved visiting that country.)

Well, you know... cricket... Although I suppose whether that's a sport or not can be debated.
posted by hippybear at 10:32 AM on August 3, 2015 [10 favorites]


Three things need to happen:
  1. Athletes need to step up and say "we'll stay home rather than compete in sewage."
  2. Advertisers need to say "the Olympics needs to make it right, so those athletes will compete."
  3. The IOC, and the organizing committee, and the advertisers need to assemble a gigantic pile of money to throw at the problem.
I'm not sanguine that it'll happen, since the Olympics have turned into the publicity equivalent of strip-mining.
posted by adamrice at 10:38 AM on August 3, 2015 [6 favorites]


I live here so it´s really no surprise.
Just another part of the promised infrastructure which wont be ready; probably ever.
From March 2012 - Plan to Clean Rio Beaches by 2014
April 2012 Leblon Beach Water Pollution Challenges
May 2014 Rio's Sanitation Situation
picked up by Global Post Come for the World Cup, swim with the feces.
So this is not ``News´``except that the City politicians and Olympic medical advisors blatently ignore the evidence.
Now how about the individual countries withdrawing their at risk athletes. Not a lot of hope for that.
Is it possible to sue a country sailing association if you get ill representing them in supposedly ``safe´´ conditions in a global event or have all the competitors signed waivers?
posted by adamvasco at 10:39 AM on August 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


Well, you know... cricket... Although I suppose whether that's a sport or not can be debated.


While India's interest in cricket exists, which puts it a cut above any other sport, it still does not amount to any fucks being given, at least so far as I could see while I was there. (Though I was in Chennai, which Indians have told me is the most culturally ocschwar-like city there.)
posted by ocschwar at 10:57 AM on August 3, 2015


Home court advantage?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:59 AM on August 3, 2015


In the 2024 Toronto Olympics, the competitive eating finals will be held at taco bell stadium.
posted by Poldo at 11:11 AM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


[Cholera]'s an exhibition sport and medals won't be given.

Nevertheless, references will be made to the "winning" team taking the brown.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:27 AM on August 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


Time for the festival to set up a permanent home and be done.
I completely agree. Let it be in Greece, at Olympia, and let them bathe in tourist money every four years. Set up a permanent set of facilities, etc.
Unlikely, but an attractive thought.
posted by librosegretti at 11:31 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


It's kind of a metaphor...
posted by Naberius at 11:34 AM on August 3, 2015


Man, the TV people must have had their hearts set on the picturesque backgrounds of Rio for these sailing events for them not to have moved them someplace safer years ago. Although it's not like anybody in the U.S. would get to see sailing on TV anyway.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:55 AM on August 3, 2015


Charming. The Olympics have become a health hazard for those competing.

That ship sailed


Well, quite.
Participating in the Olympics means you have about a 10% chance of injury, with a 50% chance that said injury will prevent you from training and/or competing. Breakdown.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:21 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


To be fair to Brazil, there are plenty of waterways in the US that have dangerous levels of human sewage pumped into them.
posted by octothorpe at 12:34 PM on August 3, 2015


That's not being fair, that's a false equivalency.
posted by Justinian at 1:01 PM on August 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm pretty sure we don't make athletes train for years to come over here and swim in sewage, though.
posted by emjaybee at 1:18 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


'California water expert' must have special meaning I am unfamiliar with

Well, you know how we've got this drought going on? There's this one sort of pond that never seems to drain...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:22 PM on August 3, 2015


It's a start. Starving wolves in the track and field, woodworm in the gymnastics equipment, nesting gannets in the cycling arena...
posted by Devonian at 2:32 PM on August 3, 2015


I'm pretty sure we don't make athletes train for years to come over here and swim in sewage, though

I smell a new olympic event in the off(al)ing!
posted by Justinian at 3:47 PM on August 3, 2015


I'm pretty sure we don't make athletes train for years to come over here and swim in sewage, though
ABC's next reality show!
posted by TwoStride at 4:24 PM on August 3, 2015


Perhaps it's time to make bog snorkeling an official event.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:27 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


The odds of someone having a quiet conversation with London's Olympic organizers should be ticking slightly upward... I'm not saying it's likely, but come on, they just hosted one, and all the facilities are still right there...
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:48 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


I was in Rio a week ago, at Copacabana. I'm glad that all I did was have a caipirinha and a walk along the beach. I stayed well clear of the water.
posted by wintermind at 6:34 PM on August 3, 2015


Perhaps they should consider replacing the athletes with mud-run participants, who have had some experience with such things in the past.




In all seriousness this is atrocious and I can't believe that the IOC would proceed using such a polluted venue for their athletes.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:55 PM on August 3, 2015


ED, the IOC just awarded the Winter Olympics to a venue that literally doesn't have any snow. You think they give any fucks about polluted water as long as the money spigot flows with nice clean money?

Because that tap will stay open. The Olympics represent way too many business opportunities for governments around the world to unite and pull the plug.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:02 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


at Copacabana. I'm glad that all I did was have a caipirinha and a walk along the beach.

You didn't sing the Barry Manilow tune in your head? What was the point of even going?
posted by biffa at 8:21 AM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


No need to worry, the politicians have taken action; it will all be ok by 2030 (Portuguese).
As Juliana Barbassa, longtime Rio journalist and author of the new book Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro on the Brink said to me, “Rio’s foul waters are a symptom of larger government inability to meet people’s basic needs.”.
Its an interesting book and well written. I started it at the weekend.
posted by adamvasco at 10:13 AM on August 4, 2015


ED, the IOC just awarded the Winter Olympics to a venue that literally doesn't have any snow. You think they give any fucks about polluted water as long as the money spigot flows with nice clean money?

Wasn't the only other bid from Kazakhstan? That would have been a disaster. At least they can manufacture snow.
posted by Justinian at 3:56 PM on August 4, 2015


Yeah, but that was because they irritated Oslo into dropping out because of their ridiculous list of personal demands, including ioc-only traffic lanes everywhere and the king personally sucking up to them.
posted by tavella at 5:21 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Does the IOC require its officials be carried about in palanquins while poor children sprinkle rose petals in front of their procession or is that only in their heads?
posted by Justinian at 1:43 PM on August 5, 2015


That's only for Summer bids.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:52 PM on August 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


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