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Protests as swimmers take part in Rio event
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Thousands of amateur swimmers took to the brackish waters of Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach on Saturday for an open-sea race that also brought out demonstrators calling for a thorough cleanup of the Olympic city’s chronically polluted waterways.
Swimmers of all ages in wetsuits and silicon swim caps took part in the Rei e Rainha do Mar, or King and Queen of the Sea event, plowing through the murky waters and around giant buoys in packs of several hundred people as bystanders and locals cheered them on.
Saturday’s race, which is sponsored by Rio City Hall, took place near the south end of Copacabana where the 2016 Olympic marathon swimming competition and the swimming leg of the triathlon will be held.
Water pollution has become a hot-button issue here with 70 percent of sewage in this city of 6 million flowing untreated into the city’s waterways and just 2 1/2 years to go before the start of the games.
While Copacabana is reliably among the cleanest of Rio’s beaches, it’s not safe for swimming year-round due to occasional spikes in the levels of fecal matter. Raw sewage on some of the once-swimmable beaches that dot the city are so high that beaches like Botafogo and many others on the picturesque Guanabara Bay, site of the Olympic sailing events, have been abandoned.
Some swimmers in the event complained about the state of the water in Copacabana, which was distinctly brown and dotted with plastic bags and other detritus.
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