Officials Are Draining Rio's Green 'Swamp' Pool, But Their Excuse Is Weak AF

Officials at the Rio Olympics finally have a solution for the green water that one athlete dubbed "the swamp," and another said smells "like a fart."

They're going to drain out the green water from the synchronized swimming pool at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Center and pump in nearly 1 million gallons of new water from a practice pool.

Rio 2016 spokesman Maria Andrada said at a news conference on Saturday,

Of course it is an embarrassment because we are hosting the Olympic Games. It should be light blue, transparent. We could have done better in fixing it quickly. We learned a painful lesson the hard way.

The cause for that embarrassment? A contractor "mistakenly" poured 80 liters of hydrogen peroxide two pools at the aquatics center, one that is used for diving, and another that is used for water polo and synchronized swimming.

That happened on August 5.

Now, on August 13, only the pool for synchronized swimming will be drained, and that's because of the nature of the sport. Synchronized swimmers have to see other underwater and judges have to see through the water to, well, judge their performances.

That can't exactly happen if the water's green.

As for the diving well, that will be treated with more cleaning and filtering. But despite the obvious abnormality of the water, officials at the summer games have insisted that the athletes were never in danger.

Andrada said on Saturday,

There was never a health risk, a health worry or concern in any shape or form.

Just a day before, though, an even more notable quote was given by Andrada when he said "chemistry is not an exact science," while trying to explain the difficulty in treating the water.

But chemistry, of course, is literally an exact science, as is predicting who will get roasted on Twitter.

We all know if a group of people (like officials in Rio) do something ridiculous (like allow athletes to compete in green water), then it's only a matter of time before Twitter's users spring into action.

See? Simple.

[olympics]

Citations: NBC Olympics, Washington Post