Athletes may have to swim in ‘raw sewage’ at 2016 Rio Olympics

But the stench of raw sewage still greets travelers arriving at Rio’s global airport. “Those kinds of things would be shut down immediately if found here [in the U.S.]”.

At an event held Thursday to mark 53 weeks until South America’s first ever Olympic Games, Rio’s security secretary Andrei Passos Rodrigues said a total of about 85,000 people would be deployed to assist with security, from security guards and law enforcement to military troops.

“Athlete safety is always of the utmost importance to USA Triathlon, and we take this situation very seriously”, he said in the release.

Part of the problem, apparently, is that the global Olympic Committee and Brazilian authorities test only for bacteria levels when judging water quality-but viruses can be just as harmful to human health.

Almost 1,400 athletes will be sailing in Guanabara Bay, swimming off Copacabana Beach and rowing on Rodrigo De Freitas lagoon.

“Honestly, Rio has been doing a great job with the water, we haven’t had any issues”.

David Zee, an oceanography professor at Rio de Janeiro’s state university who has long researched pollution in Guanabara Bay, rejected the government’s response, saying that in Brazil “it’s natural that the authorities react saying that ‘everything is fine, ‘ but everything is not fine”.

Planned pollution reduction measures include a £7million ecobarrier and ecoboat system to protect race areas from floating rubbish, a new pipeline to divert sewage from Marina da Gloria, scheduled to be ready by November, the closure of closing landfill sites, reducing industrial pollution and increasing water treatment works.

But Leonardo Daemon, coordinator of water quality monitoring for the state’s environmental agency, said officials are strictly following Brazilian regulations on water quality, which are all based on bacteria levels.

Recent reports claim that the water in which athletes in swimming and boating categories will be using “are rife with human sewage and present a serious health risk”, according to ESPN. Results ranged from 14 million adenoviruses per liter to 1.7 billion per liter.

In this April 28, 2015 photo, Fernando Spilki, virologist and…

A five-month investigation by the Associated Press revealed dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria that can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

But “if the test was done and the water was considered unfit, without a doubt there’s a certain risk”.

After examining the AP data, U.S. waterborne virus risk assessment expert, Kristina Mena, estimates that athletes would have a 99 percent chance of infection if they ingested even just three teaspoons of water. That depends on immunity and many other factors.

“Our medical experts who we count on for their expertise in the subject, they made some recommendations, and we still follow those recommendations”, he said.