The Greening Of Olympic Diving Pool In Rio, Brazil: Here's The Cause

The Olympic diving pool in the Maria Lenk Centre turned dark green on Tuesday. It was embarrassing said the Olympic officials.

Chemical imbalance in Olympic diving pool caused water to turn green: https://t.co/gpRVOStkno pic.twitter.com/Jo91yJVhCB

— CTV Edmonton (@ctvedmonton) August 10, 2016

So, what causes the diving pool to change into green color? The officials said that someone accidentally poured 160 liters of hydrogen peroxide on August 5, 2016 to the diving pool. This neutralized the chlorine and caused it to turn green. According to Gizmodo, the hydrogen peroxide, which is used as a cleaning agent for pool should not be combined with chlorine, as it neutralizes the chlorine. This doesn't help when electronic monitoring systems have to measure the amount of chemicals in the water and algae was able to bloom.

Why did the water in Olympic diving pool suddenly turn green?https://t.co/xwGwWzODms — The Express Tribune (@etribune) August 10, 2016

Gustavo Nascimento, the director of venue management of Rio 2016 Olympic said that this is a way of cleaning swimming pools but you're not supposed to combine it with chlorine. He further said that they were not consulted and their contractor's failure is their failure, as noted by Independent.

Meanwhile, Mario Andrada, the spokesman of Rio 2016 commented that it was an embarrassment. He added that this was probably the only issue that they were unable to solve quickly. The officials decided to drain the 3.7 million-liter pool before the synchronized swimming event will begin, which is scheduled on Monday. According to report, the diving pool was back to its normal color.

Andrada also stated that they are hosting the Olympic games and athletes are here, so water is going to be an issue. They should have been better in fixing it quickly. She concluded that they learned painful lessons the hard way.