The Rio Pool – A Cautionary Aquatic Tale About How Fast Things Can Go Wrong And What You Can Do To Stop It From Happening To You

By Stacey Pineau

Tuesday, August 9, at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre started like many others have recently. Athletes and coaches were preparing to compete, fans were arriving to cheer on their countrymen/women, and event managers were working away at the thousand and one tasks that needed to happen at their facility so the world could watch a full day of world class swimming, diving and water polo. Well, maybe they were only really paying attention to the first thousand. One job seemed to slip by unnoticed. As it turns out, the tanks that distributed the chemicals needed to maintain the pools’ pH balance had run dry. And nobody noticed. Until things got green. Very green.