Rio Disappoints Critics, Won't Test Waters Before Olympics

Rio de Janeiro's Olympic organizing committee has decided against conducting viral tests of its sewage-polluted waters ahead of next year’s Olympic Games, in spite of international pressure to examine and eliminate health risks for athletes.

“The organizers of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said [in October that] they do not plan to test the human sewage-laden waterways that will be home to aquatic events for viruses that athletes fear could make them sick,” PBS Newshour recently reported.

“Rio’s Guanabara Bay and other water venues are polluted with trash and untreated human sewage. Doctors for the U.S. Olympic team blamed water contamination for causing 13 American rowers getting sick during an August practice run on the lake where the rowing competition will be held,” the report said.

Organizers in Rio say the decision against adding viral tests is supported by health authorities.

“Brazil’s Olympic organizers say the World Health Organization backs them up,” PBS reported. “Rio 2016 will also save money because viral testing is more expensive and difficult than bacterial testing.”

The WHO explained in a statement: “Testing using standard bacterial indicators is the basis of current global guidelines for monitoring bathing water in the context of public health. WHO does not currently recommend testing of viruses for routine monitoring because of a lack of standardized methods and difficulty interpreting results.”

WHO guidelines “recommend classifying water quality through a regular and ongoing program of microbial water quality testing, using enterococci and E.coli and sanitary inspection to identify health risks to bathers from pollution of bathing waters,” the statement said.

Speaking at a news conference, Rio spokesman Mario Andrada said he the WHO's recommendation is the "final instructions" on the matter. This suggests “an end to the months of flip-flopping on the issue,” ABC News reported.

In July, an Associated Press investigation revealed that athletes will be “swimming and boating in waters so contaminated with human feces that they risk becoming violently ill and unable to compete in the games.”

The probe pointed to “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.”

For more coverage of Rio’s Olympic waterways, visit Water Online’s Source Water Contamination Solutions Center.