While athletes across water sports have universally criticized the quality of the water in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games, open water swimmers were positive in their post-race comments, at least those shared through the organizing committee’s press release.
The official Olympic test event, with 12 of the 20 early Olympic qualifiers competing, was held on Saturday and Sunday off the Copacabana Beach, following the anticipated Olympic racecourse.
Britain’s Keri-Anne Payne, a two-time World Champion over 10 kilometers, won the women’s race in a leisurely 2:12:18.7 – at most elite meets, the race winner is around 2 hours or just under.
Just 9 of the 25 entered women finished the race. Including those who withdrew were Brazil’s Poliana Okimoto, who was in 2nd behind Payne after one lap but finished her day there. Okimoto was 6th in the 10k at Worlds to seal her spot for the Olympic Games.
There’s little real incentive, aside from race course experience, for athletes to have gone full-bore in this race, so many competitors stopped prior to full completion of the four-lap course. Still, Payne had positive comments after the race, belying the widespread complaints about reports over the water quality in the area.
“Rio is one of my most favourite cities in the world,” said Payne, who took silver in Beijing and came fourth in London. “Copacabana has all the qualities necessary for a good venue. For an Olympic venue, it could not be more iconic, historical and fun. Swimming here is so good that there was one moment in the race when I stopped to appreciate where I was. Seeing Christ the Redeemer with his arms open while competing is incredible. We’ll be able to tell people in the future: ‘I competed at Copacabana beach.’”
Payne was followed by Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha (2:12:29.9) and Isabelle Harle (2:12:23.0).
While she was positive in her comments, Payne didn’t specifically mention the issue of water quality. In fact, in the press release, nobody mentioned the water quality, though it was alluded to by one organizing official.
“First we delivered operations on the land, with plenty of challenges, now we have done the same with an event that happens in the sea, which presented different types of challenges,” said Bernardo Villano, Rio 2016’s venue manager for the Copacabana zone. “Overall, we can say that the results have been positive. Fort Copacabana is on the right track for the Rio 2016 Games.”
The men’s race was topped by Allan do Carmo (2:03:53.9) of the home team, with Japan’s Yasunari Hirai (2:03:54.4) and Richard Weinberger of Canada (2:03:57.7) chasing. That was again quite a slow pace, but even at that the defending World Champion Ferry Weertman fought early on, then let himself fall almost 10 minutes off the pace to place 6th (2:12:08.7). Again, just 9 of 25 entrants finished the race.
“Copacabana is a great location for an Olympic competition,” said Italy’s Simone Ruffini, the 25km world champion who came fourth on Saturday and is already qualified for Rio 2016. “Here the competition will take place in real open waters, not in lakes, like in Beijing and London (the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games).”
While the air temperature was a scorching 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Brazilian winter, the water temperature was a very cool 18 Celsius (64 Fahrenheit). The timing of the race came almost a year exactly prior to the Olympics (August 5th-21st, 2016), so similar conditions would be expected for the full show.
Should be on the gold coast…
of Lake Michigan.
It is a beautiful venue. I think the Pan Ams open water races were at Copa years ago.
I’d rather be reading a story about the safety levels for the water rather than how stunning the physical setting is. This also makes Brazil look really bad…just make a public statement that the water safety levels will be addressed and tested and that no athletes will be placed at an unacceptable risk. Then have a contingency: move the open water events up or down the coast 20 miles or whatever the safe delta to be in safer conditions. That seems simple. I know Brazil is drooling for the money from all Olympic events after the billions spent to host the… Read more »
That water looks alot better in that picture then anything else we’ve been seeing. They may have cleaned up a bit, though you need a big area free from pollution to be safe.
“Just 9 of the 25 entered women finished the race.* There’s little real incentive, aside from race course experience, for athletes to have gone full-bore in this race, so many competitors stopped prior to full completion of the four-lap course.” (*including Brazil’s best swimmer, Okimoto).
Huh? That’s red flag #2. Like Emzee, I’m also not offering an opinion on the quality of the venue or water, just offering some skepticism for a race outcome that’s unusual and an explanation that sounds unusual too. It’s one possibility, but another is that the 16 who didn’t finish saw something they didn’t like and wanted to avoid illness.
Alright everyone, we’re going to play by Price is Right rules. The question: How much were each of them paid for these comments?
See?! No issues!
“nobody mentioned the water quality”
I mean there’s one red flag right there. Everybody knows the beach is beautiful and is a great place to be. But the real concern is the possibly infected, disgusting, unsafe water. Let’s see in a few days or weeks if any of these athletes get sick now.
And to clarify, I’m not saying either way that the venue is perfect or the venue is awful. I’m merely being skeptical of the comments seeing as they sound like half-truths and I want all of the truth.
I was joking