Rio Olympic pollution – Coke with that!!

by Rob Kothe & the Sail-World Team on 25 Nov 2015 The 49er and 49er FX World Championships have just been completed in the far from pristine waters of San Isidro in Buenos Aires.

Lurking in the brown waters on the race course was a cocktail of human faecal viruses and bacteria that laid more than a third of the sailors low, with a range of gastrointestinal illnesses.

Vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps and fevers were the norm and if the experience of the 49ers fleet was to be duplicated in Rio, then the results of the Olympic regatta might be seriously affected.

While it appears many of the sailors suffered from ‘gastro’ in some form or another, the experience of the 2012 Olympic 49er Gold medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain (Goobs) Jensen shows just how devastating such an illness can be on sailor’s performance in a regatta.

After day one Jensen was seriously distressed with stomach pains, diarrhoea and vomiting.

As Outteridge explained ‘We left him at home all-day and brought him down just in time for the sailing. We took him out to the course and back again post racing, by powerboat, to reduce his effort and he was unable to eat for almost three days.

“During racing he was fine, but it’s really difficult to maintain any enthusiasm and energy levels when you can’t eat, because anything he eats comes straight out of him again.

At one stage it looked like the Australia pairing would not even make the Gold fleet but as Jensen slowly improved the duo came from 27th in the fleet to seventh with a day of racing remaining.

With outstanding speed, they then climbed rapidly up the ladder to finish second overall to the New Zealand pairing of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, the London 2012 Silver medallists.

The London Gold Medallists were easily the boat of the day, outsailing their Kiwi rivals, with better speed upwind and down and it's very likely that had Jensen not been laid low the overall result would have been much closer, even different.

Outteridge commented: “Obviously the water here isn’t very clean and with the thunderstorms and lots of rain there’s a lot of crap that’s being pushed on to the racecourse and we’re subject to this.

'It’s like sailing in Rio and you have to take the right precautions. In Rio everyone knows it’s dirty and takes precautions accordingly and looks after themselves. Here everyone gets told it's just muddy water, but there’s a lot of filth in there as well.”

A lesson learned on just how debilitating illness can be on sailor’s regatta performance.

The spotlight will return to Rio in December when the 2015 Cup de Vela is sailed on the Olympic course area.

There was an independent, five-month analysis published July 30 of samples from each of the venues where athletes will have contact with water.

The results showed dangerously high levels of disease-causing viruses from human sewage at all water venues for next year's games, with an expert's risk assessment saying it was an almost certainty athletes would be infected by viruses.

That doesn't automatically mean an athlete would fall ill — that depends on numerous factors, including their immune system.

Brazilian virologist Fernando Spilki of Feevale University to test Rio's waters for three types of human adenovirus, as well as rotavirus, enterovirus and bacterial faecal coliforms. The viruses can cause stomach and respiratory ailments that would easily knock an athlete out of competition. The viruses can cause more serious, though rarer, ailments including heart and brain inflammation.

Bruce Gordon, the WHO's coordinator of water, sanitation, hygiene and health in Geneva, told Sail-World earlier this year:

‘Everyone knows there is faecal contamination in the waters in Rio, its visible for all to see.

‘E.coli is representative marker of the suite of pathogens in faeces. If you're finding E.coli, you can expect to find protozoan pathogens. Things like cryptosporidium or giardia or viral pathogens.’

Tests prior to the Pre-Olympic event had revealed that ingestion of a teaspoon of the polluted water would be enough to cause significant health issues.

At the Pre-Olympic test event sailed out of the Marina da Gloria and Guanabara Bay in Rio in August bronze medal winning helmsman Erik Heil (GER) was admitted to a German hospital following his return from the Pre-Olympic Test event. Heil blamed the polluted water for his infected legs.

One Korean sailor was hospitalized during the event, missing a day's racing. A New Zealand sailor was also advised not to sail, missing three races, suffering a gastric illness. Sources at the regatta told Sail-World that he had been ill for four days.

ISAF Officials held the line, reminding everyone that there was no link proven between the water in Guanabara Bay and the athlete’s illnesses.

In Buenos Aires, there was no such pooh poohing (yes that is a pun).

“Recent thunderstorms and some capsizing into the less than desirable looking brown water have been targeted as the culprits for this mystery sickness that seems to be catching up with sailors as the day’s progress,’’ regatta officials said in a release.

Certainly if the illness level that happened in Buenos Aires was to happen at the Rio Olympic event, then it would be a tragedy for sailing at every level. The mainstream media would be all over the issue, not the focus the host city, the sailors, ISAF or the wider sailing community would want.

We can only trust that the copious amounts of Coca-Cola mouth wash favoured by some of the teams, including the British, with lots of bottles of Coke on the coach boats, will do to those nasty viruses and bacteria what it does to eggshells and coins.

Can you see it now?? Coca-Cola, the official Mouthwash of the XXXI Olympiad.