Wednesday August 3, 2016.
The open water swimmers who will compete in the waters of the bay of Rio will have to respect an imperative rule: do not drink the cup, in order not to fall ill!
It makes you smile, it seems so improbable. But for athletes who will have to spend several dozen hours (including training) in the waters of Rio Bay, it is much less funny!
The samples taken in the natural pools reserved for open water swimming competitions (10 kilometers and triathlon) or rowing are indeed not very inviting. Where, in France, a beach is banned for a few hundred nanoviruses per liter of water, in Rio, viruses swarm by the millions in the equivalent of a bottle of mineral water!
1.7 billion viruses per liter of water
In the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, where the rowing competition is scheduled, it was even the record figure of 1.7 billion viruses per liter of water which had been measured in 2015. The latest samples have identified “only” 248 million per liter of water.
Antibiotics are useless
As a result, athletes are invited not to drink the cup, of course, but even not to “put their heads under water”, by some scientists. Practical, when you want to swim the butterfly breast or the front crawl …
Agencies report that athletes have taken antibiotics as a preventive measure, forgetting, first of all, that antibiotics weaken the body, making it more susceptible to infections, but above all forgetting that antibiotics can do nothing against viruses, since they target microbes!
The first freestyle events will take place on August 15th. But we will be fixed earlier, during the training sessions, on the consequences of these “forced” baths in culture broths …
