Rio Officials Replace Pool Water, Have New Excuses

Rio Olympics officials took the extraordinary step of replacing all of the water in the synchronized swimming/water polo pool after athletes testified it was too cloudy and eye-irritating for them to compete today.

While the murky water might have been fine for water polo players, the irritants—caused either by the water, or whatever Rio officials put in it—were not, and synchronized swimmers need crystal-clear water to execute underwater maneuvers. Officials closed the pool Friday, promising that their treatments that day would restore the water. It didn’t work, necessitating the full transfusion. (The water also smelled like farts.)

It looked better today...

...though the diving well still looks like a Sherwin-Williams paint swatch.

Organizers also produced yet another excuse for why the water turned green: an inept pool technician dumped 160 liters of hydrogen peroxide into the water. Here are some other excuses Rio organizers had previously used to explain the green water:

They ran out of chemicals.

There were too many people using the pool.

It wasn’t windy enough.

It was too hot.

It was too acidic.

The water was “confused.”