NOT EASY BEING GREEN
Watch: Rio’s Olympic Pool Has Turned Green
Experts suspect an algae bloom run amok may have turned the diving pool green.
Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty
Add one more item to the long list of problems plaguing Rio’s Summer Olympics: the diving pool has turned green.
The strange phenomenon is visible to anyone viewing the swimming and diving pools, which sit next to each other like a before-and-after picture. While the swimming pool has maintained its healthy blue hue, the diving pool has turned a viscous green, leading Britain’s synchronized diver Tonia Couch to complain she couldn’t even see her partner under water.
Experts and journalists have posited theories to explain the greenness—is it from copper ions? An algae bloom? Insufficient chlorination? A Rio 2016 spokesperson says officials are investigating. Whatever it is, it looks pretty gross.