The colour change during the women’s 10-metre platform finals remains to be a mystery for the organisers, the players and the public alike. The water was tested and found safe but the organisers could not find any reason behind the sudden colour change. Earlier on Monday, the water in the diving pool was crystal clear when Britain’s Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow won bronze in the men’s 10m synchro final. However, the water started changing colours during the women’s event on Tuesday and appeared to have embraced the colour green. In comparison to the pool alongside it, the difference was clearly visible and theories like algae infection, deliberate contamination and possible side effects from Rio’s heat were brought up.
Daley went on twitter to post a picture of him diving into the same pool a day before to express his surprise. The Olympic diving organisers issued a statement confirming that launch of an investigation on the sudden colour change. The statement, though, mentioned that the pool had safe conditions to dive in. The news went viral on social media with people from around the world expressed their surprise at the incident. #Poolgate was trending on twitter even after 24 hours of the incident.Pedro Adrega, head of communications at Fina’s swimming governing body, accused the athletes of requesting a colour change to lessen the effects of the sun’s glare.
Britain’s Tonia Couch confessed to never having dived in anything like the pool. She said that they had noticed the greenery during the warm-ups but by the competition, it changed into complete green. Couch said that the colour had made the spotting the surface easier while halfway in the air but insisted that it had not impacted the result in any way.
