Sailors in Rio take on water
Oil slick at Olympic venue
A new pollution problem surfaced in Guanabara Bay, the venue for sailing in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Sailors complained yesterday about an oil slick that turned white boats brown with crews in town practicing for the Olympics, which open in a month.
“We’ve never seen anything like this. It was all over the place,” Finnish sailor Camilla Cedercreutz said. “There was no way you could avoid it.”
It’s yet another in a long list of problems confronting South America’s first games: the Zika virus, rising crime and violence, budget cuts and slow ticket sales. The games will also open with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff facing an impeachment trial, and the country mired in its deepest recession in decades.
Cedercreutz said the slick filled part of the bay Sunday, staining her boat from bow to stern.
“It shouldn’t be this dirty,” said Cedercreutz, who has qualified in the 49erFX class. “But there’s nothing we can do about it.” . . .
Police investigating doping searched the hotel rooms of two Italian athlete managers during the Kenyan Olympic trials and questioned them at police headquarters, one manager told The Associated Press. The agents represent a number of top Kenyan athletes and previously represented marathon champion Rita Jeptoo, one of the highest-profile Kenyans to be banned for doping. . . .
Azerbaijan said it plans to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after being stripped of two Olympic weightlifting spots over doping. Six lifters failed drug tests at last year’s world championships. . . .
The International Cycling Union said Tatyana Antoshina, a road racer with Russia’s national squad ahead of the Olympics, was provisionally suspended after failing a drug test.
Cavendish wins Tour stage
Mark Cavendish showed off his sprinting experience by edging Andre Greipel in a photo finish to win the third stage of the Tour de France in Angers. It was Cavendish’s second victory in this Tour and 28th overall, matching Bernard Hinault for second on the all-time list behind Eddy Merckx, who had 34 stage wins. On a very slightly uphill finish, Cavendish kept pedaling to the line while Greipel, who was ahead, put his head down a bit too early.
World champion Peter Sagan held on to the yellow jersey.
Finns detain Cubans
Finnish police released two members of Cuba’s national men’s volleyball team but are holding six others on suspicion of aggravated rape, an investigator said. The eight men were detained over the weekend in Tampere after local police received a report that a woman had been raped at a hotel.
The Cuban team was in the city participating in the Volleyball World League tournament, where it lost against Finland without three of their players, who had been detained.