Discussion: AP Test Shows Rio Olympic Water Badly Polluted Far Offshore: 'Exposure Is Imminent'

Discussion for article #243328

Who’s in charge of Venue Plan B?

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The Olys are a scam. The IOC has convinced the world its overblown athletic events are godly. In fact, they are corrupted and amazingly expensive. And now we see the IOC is willing to sacrifice athletes’ health in its efforts to line its pockets and be treated lavishly.

Time to pull the plug.

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Sounds like you could get an infection just watching the televised coverage…

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TPM/AP:

Athletes in Rio test events have tried many tricks and treatments to avoid falling ill, including … preemptively taking antibiotics — which have no effect on viruses.

Not that this is likely to do any good either, but: Hey guys, maybe try an anti-viral like acyclovir.

For a depressing assessment of the current state of affairs at WHO, the current issue of Lancet has coverage of a report from the Harvard School of Public Health/London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola.

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“It doesn’t appear at this point that the athletes are being thought of first.”

And anyone who is surprised by this has obviously not been paying attention…

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On the bright side, swimmers and sailors encountering old, rusted washing machines get to keep them…

I enjoy watching high level athletic competition, and the Olympics offer a rare chance to see some minor sports (wrestling, judo, etc). I’ve believed for quite a while that it was a toss-up as which organization is more corrupt: FIFA or the IOC. I watched the World Cup and the Olympics anyway.

I won’t be watching any of the coverage of the 2016 Olympics. This kind of thing is beyond the pale; there is no longer any question about which organization is more corrupt. It’s the IOC, and it isn’t even close.

That would be the IOC, I guess. But there is no Venue B for the open water sports: Brazil dumps raw sewage into the rivers and oceans everywhere. A Venue B would have to be outside Brazil. It’s too late to pull it off, but if I were running the sailing, rowing and swimming federations I’d be organizing an alternative somewhere else. They should have been doing that as soon as the London games were over. No progress had been made in addressing the problem at that time. The idea that comprehensive sewage treatment systems for Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo could be built in four years along with all the other construction required was ludicrous.

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@Druid800: Unless the athletes are literally in the IOC’s pockets.

This literally shows that the IOC doesn’t give a sh*t about the athletes

@condew: EBOLA! (shout that once and you’ll get plenty of coverage - except from NBC)

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Athletes who ingest three teaspoons of water have a 99 percent chance of being infected by viruses.

What happens when all those athletes and all those attendees with a high probability of getting sick go home before the diseases become visible, infecting the people around them as they travel and when they get home? This is unacceptable for the athletes and everyone around them. Hold the water events somewhere else, perhaps a previous Olympic venue.

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Maybe they should have awarded the Olympics to a city with a multi-billion dollar deep tunnel sewage storage and treatment system and a river that flows backwards to ensure contaminants don’t drain into water where people swim and get drinking water.

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Time to cancel this fat waste of money that benefits only a tiny few, and has become reckless and dangerous.

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The IOC simply sets up the parameters for its bi-annual con job… It doesn’t have the wherewithal to do much else. There is no Plan B once the trap is set and a venue city is selected.

“Rio 2016 follows the expert advice of the World Health Organization, whose guidelines for Safe Recreational Water Environments recommend classifying water through a regular program of microbial water quality testing.”

All things considered, I think I’ll be eating a rasher of bacon with dinner tonight.

The obvios and best solution is to move the location of the open water events.

This is just gross. It is total negligence to hold any events in a body of water this contaminated. It needs to be moved.

I am so over the Olympics precisely because they don’t give a fuck about the games - its all about the money. After that disgusting display in Russia where they literally displaced a whole town and worse and now this.

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I agree. The Olympics is a sham and lines the pocket of a few at the expense of far too many.

“Let’s hide behind the chain saws!”