There is no disputing the cleanest-looking stretch of water in Rio on the eve of these Olympics. Plenty of murkiness may exist elsewhere, both above and below the surface, but the gleaming new 50m pool about to play host to the world’s best swimmers over the coming week is a veritable oasis. The organisers are confident the only foreign bodies floating in it will be competing.
Things have been going rather less swimmingly in the warm-up pool where the Australian team have already queried the water quality but inside the impressive main venue it is a different story. There seems every chance, looking at it, that by the end of the Games people will be focusing on spectacular feats of athleticism and endurance more than the steady drip‑drip of sewage and doping stories that have dominated the buildup.
This may prove wishful thinking, of course, should certain Russian competitors surge unstoppably to medals that prove to have involved illicit syringe-based help.
The sport’s governing body, Fina, has scarcely been covering itself in glory but, as ever, it will be saved by those doing the hard metres out where it counts. Everyone knows about Michael Phelps, the half‑man, half-fish who has already won 22 Olympic medals but the 31-year-old is likely to find himself sharing at least a portion of the spotlight this time. His fellow American Katie Ledecky, who has broken 11 world records since 2013, is only one of a clutch of swimmers whose efforts promise to be equally compelling.
Into this enticing mix will be plunged a GB team for whom great things are being forecast. The first day of competitionon Saturday, for example, will feature James Guy vying for his first Olympic title in the 400m freestyle while his confrere Adam Peaty commences his bid for gold in the heats of the 100m breaststroke.
Both have the look of champions elect, always assuming they do not buckle under the pressure of that tantalising possibility. On the face of it that seems improbable; the pair are good mates and have been egging on each other to greater heights rather than comparing notes on mental fraility. “I’ve never been scared of an Olympic pool; it doesn’t bother me,” Guy said.
The confident 20-year-old beat all-comers at the last world championships in Kazan when he saw off, among others, Ryan Lochte and Chad le Clos. China’s Sun Yang and Germany’s Paul Biedermann will be on his tail in the 200m freestyle in Rio but underpinning all else is a desire, along with Peaty, to become the first British male to win Olympic gold since Adrian Moorhouse in 1988. Peaty positively loves a challenge and is responsible for six of the 10 fastest times in his specialist event.
The competitive spirit of Rebecca Adlington is also discernible among the women, with the experienced Hannah Miley among those in first-day action. Jazz Carlin will have to do something extraordinary to reel in Ledecky as the phenomenal teenager from Washington DC attempts to take further jagged chunks out of the record books at a variety of freestyle distances.
There will be some heart-tugging tales, too, not least in the shape of the 18-year-old Yusra Mardini, a refugee from Syria who was among asylum seekers who took a rubber boat from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. Then there is the London-based Gaurika Singh, the youngest Olympic participant in Rio at 13 years and 255 days, who survived the earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people in Nepal in April last year. Her appearance, representing Nepal, in the 100m backstroke really will test the theory that the Olympics is too cloyingly commercial these days.
It should make the pool among the more attractive ports of call at the Games. The exterior of the aquatics centre is certainly worth a look: imagine a marine-themed, wave-inspired Banksy design wrapped camouflage-style around the outside of a huge rectangle and you are getting somewhere close. If not quite as striking as Beijing’s Water Cube that felt akin to being on the inside of a Fox’s Glacier mint it is at least an indication the Brazilian organisers have tried to rise above the handicaps of cost, politics and public protest and think a little bit differently.
The world’s leading swimmers, accordingly, can have no real excuses if they fail to grab the world’s imagination. The only nagging fear is that the IOC’s failure to bar athletes guilty of doping offences from re-entering the fray at these Games will leave a retrospective stain in the pool as well as elsewhere.
Hoping for the best is not meant to be part of professional sport but, in this instance, it can only be hoped the good guys and girls somehow prevail. If not, even the invitingly clear waters of the Olympic pool will be tainted by association.
