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Rio 2016 Olympic officials have stated that the green pool has posed no risk to any of the athletes participating in the competition Image Credit: AP

 1. The blue pool turned green overnight

British diver Tom Daley tweeted last week that something was off about the pool. When the women’s synchronized diving finals were held on Tuesday the 9th of August, that water definitely looked green.

2. Here is the same pool two days apart

According to most swimming pool experts, green and unclear water tends to be the result of an algae problem. Alternative reasons for dark green water could happen with the occurrence of copper ions, which means the pool’s pH balance isn’t right.

3. Some divers said that the green colour actually helped 

Although the greenish hue definitely did not look appealing to anyone, many of the divers claimed that because it was not the same colour as the sky, they were able to easily determine their distance from the water, so this actually helped.

 

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4. We now know why the pool turned green

Rio Olympics officials have confirmed that the mystery of the green pool was finally solved. After about a week of leaving audiences and athletes confused and also sort of disgusted, the Olympic officials have released a statement saying that one of the contractors had accidentally dropped 160 litres of hydrogen peroxide in the water. What happened afterwards was the neutralization of the chlorine, which caused organisms to grow in the water, which included algae.

 

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5. What will happen now?

Now that we know why and how the pool turned green, the officials have decided to drain the pool, since they will not be able to clean the water in time for the synchronized swimming competition. They will then move almost 1 million gallons of water from a nearby pool. This whole process should take about 10 hours.