Swimmers driven to wrong venue

THE semi-finals of the women’s 50 metres freestyle were held up when a bus driver took competitors to the wrong venue.

Britain’s Fran Halsall and two other competitors boarded a bus that was meant to take them from the Athletes’ Village to the swimming pool, only 15 minutes away, but found themselves speeding towards the athletics venue on the other side of the city.

Friday night’s drama stemmed from the driver getting his venue acronyms wrong.

Halsall said they drove 40 minutes one way, “had a nice tour of the Olympic Stadium”, drove 40 minutes back to the village and then went to the pool for a hasty warm-up and delayed race.

Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada said the transport plan drivers used referred to the Olympic Aquatics Stadium as OAS and the Olympic Stadium as OLS.

“It was a contingency bus and he was meant to take them to the aquatics but he went to the athletics instead,” said Andrada.

“From now on we will tell them the acronym and just say ‘aquatics’.”