Rio Olympics 2016: Athletes Warned Not To Put Their Heads Underwater, But Why?

An infectious adenovirus, a common cause of respiratory illness, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis is said to be present at nearly 90 percent of the test sites. The study also found that the water is harbouring viral levels of raw human sewage and harmful bacteria that are considered dangerous in the United States.

Biomedical expert Valerie Harwood from the University of South Florida said that the level of human pathogenic virus is very high which is unheard of in surface waters in the US. She further discussed that seeing those high levels is very unlikely as water is being treated in the US, ABC News reported.

Rio's Gloria Marina where the sailing races will kick off has been reported to have an increased level of adenovirus from 26 million per litre in March 2015 to over 37 million per litre in June this year. Former Olympian and advisor to the Australian team, Kitty Chiller said that their Rio athletes have two very simple rules to live by on those waters, which is to try not to fall out of the boat and if they do fall out, they have keep their mouth closed.

Head coach of the US men's rowing team Bryan Volpenhein, on the other hand, said that there is not much that can be done about it but to take precautions. Also, being mentally prepared for anything that may come up will be a big help

The first results of the study were published in March last year where it was revealed that the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon, the Olympic rowing proposed site, contained 1.73 billion adenoviruses per litre, The Verge reported. The researchers suggested that accidentally ingesting just 3 teaspoons of the infected water would almost certainly infect someone with a virus.

Rio athletes may need not worry as local officials have doubled their efforts to clean up the Olympic waters. The latest readings from June reportedly have adenovirus levels at a 248 million adenoviruses per litre.