Athletes To Carry Out Own Water Tests Of Rio De Janeiro's Guanabara Bay

Athletes concerned about pollution in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay that will be used for the summer Olympic sailing competitions "will carry out their own water tests next week," according to Tariq Panja of BLOOMBERG. Int'l squads "are traveling to Brazil for the 2016 Games’s first test event amid concerns over water quality in the bay, where large amounts of untreated sewage and debris flow daily." Rio Games spokesperson Phil Wilkinson said, "In the interests of transparency we are inviting any team that wants to test the water to do so." Rio said in its bid to become the first South American country to stage the Olympics that "it would cut pollution flowing into the bay by 80 percent." That figure "has since been revised downward" though officials from the Rio state government have said that "the water will meet international sailing competition standards" (BLOOMBERG, 7/25).