The competition went on this past weekend despite the growing concern over the amount of pollution that has been found in the water venues in Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic sites.
The American team was the hardest hit with the stomach illnesses, although other teams also reported similar stomach illnesses among their members, according to World Rowing, the sport’s governing body. The Associated Press reports that World Rowing noted that with 500 young people in the event, the number of illnesses was to be expected.
Two-time Olympic gold-medal rower and U.S. coach Susan Francia said in an interview with the AP that 13 athletes and four staff members, including herself, came down with various gastrointestinal illnesses during the team’s two weeks of training in Rio.
The U.S. team physician, Dr. Kathryn Ackerman said athletes from a number of other countries stayed at the same hotel as the U.S. team but didn’t seem to get as sick as the Americans. “I don’t know if it was the water bottles in the boats, or hygiene precautions that some athletes are really good about and others weren’t,” she said.
Event officials did not rule out the American team could have become sick from food or drinking water. We’re not really sure. My personal feeling is, I think it’s from the lake,” Ackerman said. Francia said she didn’t have the data or the right information to blame the venue for the illnesses, but she did say, “It just doesn’t seem normal.”
Francia obviously had some information because the U.S. team was taking precautions about competing in the polluted lake. But she said, “maybe we were not as strict in enforcing them as we should have been from the beginning.”
”As soon as kids started going down, we were bleaching oar handles, we were immediately washing hands after coming off the water,” she said. ”Other countries didn’t allow water bottles at all. Other countries had water bottles in zip-locked bags.”
Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the Rio organizing committee on Monday put the blame for the U.S. team’s illnesses on ”class travel symptoms.” No mention was made of the pollution or the AP’s independent testing of the various water venues for viruses and bacteria, reported by Digital Journal on July 30.
But as one reader commented on the story in Yahoo Sports, “Who got bribed to give Rio the Games. I know the IOC knew of all the problems but ignored them. Was the money more important for your pockets than the health of the world’s best athletes? I think countries need to threaten to pull out to send a message to the IOC and Rio for safety for the athletes. Take care of this problem or we’ll stay home. There are many other places where these games could be held and the athletes wouldn’t have to worry about their health.”
Others commented on the failure of the Rio officials and the IOC to fix the problem of raw sewage being pumped into the venues, a problem that was well known at the time Rio got the nod to have the Olympics in 2016. Many asked if the world would have to wait until someone got so sick they died before anything was done.
