SH*TSHOW

57 Swimmers Get Diarrhea at UK’s World Triathlon Championship

“Have been feeling pretty rubbish since the race, but I guess that's what you get when you swim in shit,” one triathlete said.

At least 57 competitors at last weekend’s World Triathlon Championship Series in Sunderland, Britain fell ill with diarrhea after competing, health officials said Saturday. The beach where the event took place has long been the center of a dispute over sewage dumped by local water companies, The Guardian reported. In fact, an environmental agency tested the water at Roker Beach—the beach where the swimming portion off the triathlon took place—just days before the event and found excessive levels of E. coli bacteria 39 times higher than normal. But governing body British Triathlon said that those results weren’t published until after the competition, and that the tested water was outside the body of water where the athletes swam. It added that its own testing results were adequate for the event. One triathlete disagreed. “Have been feeling pretty rubbish since the race, but I guess that's what you get when you swim in shit,” Australia’s Jake Birtwhistle wrote on Instagram after competing, adding that “the swim should have been cancelled.”