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Pools of green and medals of gold: An unreliable Rio memoir

The 2016 Rio Olympic Games. What an adventure. (Eduardo Gabão / Wikimedia Commons)
Roar Guru
6th September, 2016
0

“Skol, skol, skol, Yea-hay!, vamos Steven, vamos.”

I slammed the empty glass down on the bench, grinning like a cat. Gripping the back of the chair to steady myself I gestured to my workmates to be quiet.

“Shoosh, listen up. I would just like to say, that Oswaldao here, is the best friggin’ boss in the entire friggin’ world.”

“Yee-hah!” the people at the bar yelled and hollered.

It was true though. After four successful days of the swimming program at Rio, Oswaldo had taken us to Toucan’s to celebrate. No boss in Australia would do that.

“So let’s all raise a glass,” I continued, “to the man who keeps the swimmers true and the pools blue.”

“Cheers!” they shouted among the tinkle of glasses.

We left Toucan’s in great spirits. Oswaldo was so happy with my work he asked me to come back to the swimming centre to admire the pool once more.

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While waiting for the taxi I heard a rustling sound. A strange animal appeared from the bushes. “What the bloody hell is that?” I screamed. “It looks like a wombat on ‘roids.”

“It’s called a capybara, Steven. The largest rodent in the world. It’s harmless.”

When the taxi came I jumped in the back seat, locked the door and closed all the windows.

The swimming centre was deserted. I flicked on the lights and the waters of the olympic pool sparkled a shimmering blue. Oswaldo looked up from the water to the Brazilian flag flying above and I caught him wiping a tear from his cheek.

I would have shed a tear myself if I hadn’t begun to feel the effects of the drinking session. “Hey Oswaldo,” I said, “do those keys open the dunnies as well?”

“No, sorry Steven.”

This was not good. I really needed to take a leak. I walked past the springboards, took a quick look around, then pissed in the corner of the diving pool.

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“Hey Steven, what the hell are you doing man?” screamed Oswaldo.

“Come on mate, it’s a big bloody pool, no-one will notice.”

Oswaldo’s expression flashed with an anger that didn’t suit his normally affable face. But it didn’t last long. He soon grinned then broke into peals of laughter. “Ok man,” he said, “I might take a leak as well. What harm could it possibly do?”

I woke next morning with a headache and a sound like a capybara gnawing on my brain. I realised the noise was somebody cursing in Portuguese. The only words that I could make out were ‘Steven’ and ‘idiot.’ I sat up in bed and whack, someone hit me with a thing that felt like a telephone book.

Oswaldo was standing there, wearing a dirty frown. “Read it Steven.”

I picked up the copy of The Rio Morning Herald that he had bashed me with and looked at the front page. Next to a photo of a garishly green diving pool I could make out the headline: Brasil; Embarraso Mondo.

I knew enough Portuguese to realise this was not good news.

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Oswaldo said, “I’ve had the spokesman for the Brazil Organising Committee on the phone biting my ear off asking what happened.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Some bullshit story about a ‘chemical imbalance’.”

“Well there’s some truth in that, I was a bit chemically imbalanced last night.”

“Now’s not the time for your stupid Aussie jokes Stephen. I need you to come right now and fix it.”

“How?”

“You’re the frickin’ pool expert – you said so in the job interview.”

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“Aw look, I might have exaggerated a bit. I did a week’s work experience at the Narrabri pool shop in Year 10.”

“I don’t give a shit Steven. The pool has to be clear by 8:00am tomorrow or the rest of the Olympics will be cancelled. Get dressed now and come downstairs. Jacinta is waiting to take us to the swimming centre.”

Jacinta was our driver and general helper. I knew she had come from the favelas, and the enthusiasm she put into every task made it clear she didn’t want to return there any time soon.

She had eyes like Colombian coffee beans and brown skin with a coppery sheen. She was an individual and it was hard not to like her for it. No official Olympic uniform for Jacinta – every day her outfit was the same: a yellow Brazil football jersey and denim shorts that hugged her hips with a grip like an anaconda.

In fact I quite fancied her and over these last few days I felt she might have had some feelings towards me.

But I had totally stuffed things up now. Her gloomy look said it all. It didn’t help that the Brazilian women’s football team had lost last night.

She pointed the car towards the swimming centre and floored it.

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It was no use. Everything we tried was a failure and the pool remained green. In the evening I ran into Jacinta at Toucan’s.

“I feel terrible for what I’ve done Jacinta. I’m so sorry.”

“Look Steven, I spoke to my Mama. She told me the only way is to seek guidance and ask for redemption. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Arrgh. Do you know how to ride a motorbike? Come on let’s go.”

I kicked the motorbike into gear and Jacinta hopped on behind, gripped me around the waist, and we rode off down the Ipanema Highway.

The top of the hill afforded a stunning view of Rio de Janeiro. From here I could see the lights of Copacabana, the Maracana, Ipanema and in the distance the mysterious Atlantic.

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I knelt and gazed up at the floodlit statue of Jesus the Redeemer, whose outstretched arms reminded me of Michael Phelps in the butterfly.

Jacinta gave me a nudge. “Come on, you must ask.”

I’m not really the religious sort but felt that I needed to do something to placate Jacinta. So I addressed the statue. “Um… I’m very sorry. Is there any way I can fix this mess?”

“Yes,” came a reply.

I looked wild-eyed at Jacinta who just nodded that I should continue.

“Can you tell us how?”

My heartbeat scudded like the whitecaps of the Atlantic. A short man in a maintenance worker’s uniform stepped out from behind the statue’s sandal. He had dark hair, cropped very straight. His eyes had a kind of black makeup that resembled a mask.

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“Who are you and what makes you think you can fix the chemical imbalance in the pool?” I said.

The man rolled his eyes. “My name is Taranoco and I’m from the Amazon. I moved to Rio because of frickin’ climate change. Our rain-forests have been defoliated and our river has been polluted beyond repair – I know every frickin’ thing there is to know about chemical imbalances.”

“So what should we do?”

He wrote something on a piece of paper. “Go to the large building by the lake then follow these frickin’ instructions,” he said, handing me the paper.

Taranoco said something to Jacinta in Portuguese which she relayed to me. “Steven, he said it takes eight hours to take effect. That means we have to apply the fix by midnight. We’ve only got 60 minutes to save the Olympics. Best let me ride – you’re slower than my frickin’ grandpa.”

“There it is.” The neon sign on the large building up ahead read ‘Olympic Doping Lab’.

Jacinta pulled up near some bushes and we crept around to a door at the back of the facility.

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“I still don’t get how we will get past security,” I said.

She bent down and lifted a doormat and picked up a key. “This is Rio security Steven.”

We made our way down a corridor and stopped outside a room with a sign above it that read ‘URINE SAMPLES.’

Inside was a laboratory with vials of urine and steam coming from various vents and tubes.

I took out Taranoco’s instructions but could not make it out. It was written in a weird pictographic script.

“That’s Amazonian Steven. Give it here.”

“You mean you can read this?”

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“It’s surprising what you pick up in the favelas. Now let me see, it says, ‘four parts Chinese swimmer and two parts Russian weightlifter.’ What does that mean?”

“Hmm. I think I might know.” I looked around the lab. In the corner was a bunch of vials with the strangest coloured urine I had ever seen. “These purple ones must be from the Chinese swimmers, and these orange ones must belong to the Russian weightlifters.” I put the vials of coloured urine into my backpack and we both walked towards the door. We stopped dead.

Blocking the doorway was a burly security guard with a pistol levelled at my head. I put my hands up and waited as the guard fumbled at his handcuffs.

From the corner of my eye I detected a blur. Like one of those gymnasts, Jacinta was executing a series of somersaults. With a final double flip she performed a karate kick which knocked the guard out cold.

“Where did you learn that?” I asked.

“A life lesson from the favelas. Now stop gawking and let’s go. There’s only fifteen minutes until midnight.”

We headed back down the gravel drive and turned onto the highway. I couldn’t believe that we had managed to pull this off. The timing was going to be tight but it should be a smooth run from here on. I looked back at the neon lights of the drug testing centre when I noticed some other lights – blue and red flashing ones – moving at speed. There was a cop car and a police motorbike on our tail.

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“Um… Jacinta.”

“Yes, I know. Hang on Steven.” She hit the throttle and we went at breakneck speed down the highway.

We couldn’t outrun them. The cop car had almost caught up to us as we came to a built-up area.

Jacinta slowed the bike then mounted the kerb and turned down a steep stairway made of cobblestones. She rode on, my teeth chattering like castanets. They chattered even more when the police fired off a couple of shots that zipped past my ear.

The cop car couldn’t continue but the motorbike followed us down the stairs.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I shouted into Jacinta’s ear.

“Trust me,” she shouted back. “I grew up in this favela. I know this place like the back of my thigh.”

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We rode down an alley ducking lines of washing until we came to a plaza that was holding a night-market. People scattered as Jacinta took a turn which was too sharp for the more powerful police bike. I watched as the cop skidded into a barrow full of ripe melons.

Oswaldo was waiting for us at the swimming centre. I looked up at the clock. 11:58pm.

“Ok, we ready?” I said.

Both Jacinta and Oswaldo nodded. “Ready.”

“Now.”

We poured the vials into the pool and watched the water cloud up and swirl in all the colours of the Mardi Gras.

And we waited.

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Just before 8:00am Oswaldo cheered. “It’s worked! We have fixed it!”

Oswaldo slapped Jacinta and myself on the back. “Thanks to both of you. You have saved Brazil’s reputation and kept me in a job. Here you go,” he said, handing us an envelope, “these are two tickets for the football final – my compliments.”

Jacinta was staring at the pool, a smile playing at her lips. Without changing her gaze she said, “do you know what that is Stephen?”

I stared into the water. “No.”

“Redemption.”

Being an Aussie it was easy to blend in with the Brazilian fans at the Maracana. With a yellow shirt and Jacinta at my side I felt as Brazilian as I ever would.

The match was tense, Jacinta alternatively gripping and pinching my arm. At one stage she half-choked me.

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By the end of the game the scores were level. The gold medal would be decided by penalty kicks.
“I’m not going to watch,” declared Jacinta.

“Should we catch a cab home then?”

“No Steven you idiot, we have to stay.”

“Oh.”

Neymar’s deciding penalty kick was like a mirror to these games and the entire mad and beautiful country of Brazil. A confident run, then a nervous stutter, and finally a wild strike that hit back of the net.

The crowd roared and Jacinta jumped up and down crazily. She pulled me to her and kissed me, a kiss thick with the heat of the favelas and the rhythm of the samba.

I was sure going to miss Rio.

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