A tale of green water, an airplane trip and seeing a horse about a medal

Reporting from Rio de Janeiro —  Let’s put this story into rewind mode and see what you might have missed, or forgotten, or might not have known you cared about, or might have purposely avoided just so you could relive it here. A look back at day four of competition at the Rio Olympics.

It’s not easy being green

OK, all pool owners know the feeling. You think you’ve got the chemicals right, or maybe you’re skimping on chlorine. Or your filter pump stopped working. So, what do you do if the water at the current Taj Mahal of diving at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Center comes up green? Not just a watered-down wispy green, we’re talking flat-out Kermit green.

Officials did tests and determined it was not a danger to the divers — isn’t it funny how that’s always the result? — but came up with an algae explanation. Divers expressed concern because they couldn’t see the bottom of the pool. “If it were green and yellow, we would know it was a patriotic thing,” Mario Andrada, spokesman for the local organizing committee, said, referring to Brazil’s national colors.

Chen Ruolin and Liu Huixia of China won the 10-meter men’s synchronized competition and said it wasn’t a factor. Not to them.

Luck of the draw

Here’s wishing archer Brady Ellison the best of luck, honest. He’s headed to the final day of competition on Friday of the men’s individual archery event. Problem is he had to beat teammate Jake Kaminski on Tuesday to get there. The draw put them against each other and they both elected to shoot without the benefit of coaches. No favoritism.

Some might speculate that part of Ellison’s success is that he was well-rested. Now file this story under First World problems. A lot of the U.S. team came to Rio on a United flight from Houston almost two weeks ago. It was completely full except for one unclaimed business class seat — the kind that go 180 degrees flat. On that flight, a Times sports editor spent almost 24 hours as No. 1 on the standby upgrade list, a perk of flying way too much.

Seat 11J. Aisle. Business class. Visible from Economy Plus seat 17F. So, who gets the upgrade? Brady Ellison, camo cap and all. A senior USOC communications official (No. 6 on the list) in seat 17D explained that the USOC pays the basic coach fare and the individual governing bodies can pay the difference to upgrade their athletes.

Who was in 17E, the middle seat in the row? A Russian women’s water polo player. In fact, almost all non-U.S. athletes were in middle seats.

What is 53 in horse years?

Phillip Dutton, the oldest U.S. Olympian at 53, picked up a bronze medal in the equestrian discipline called eventing, a combination of cross-country and jumping. His horse, Mighty Nice, likely got a pat on the mane and probably some oats and molasses, and if they were in a really good mood, a peppermint.

So did you ever wonder why the rider instead of the horse gets the medal? True, what would a horse do with a medal? What does the rider do with it, put it in a box somewhere? In real horse sports — yeah, that phrase invites trouble — the winning horse in the Kentucky Derby gets a massive blanket of roses. The jockey gets a watch and a whole bunch of money. But the winner of this year’s Derby is always listed as Nyquist, not Mario Gutierrez.

So, equine lovers everywhere, is it time to reward the horse, too? Yea for yes, neigh for no.

Obligatory drug item

The latest group of names released under the IOC’s swift justice program were Oleksandr Pyatnytsya (Ukrainian javelin thrower), Nurcan Taylan (Turkish weightlifter), Hripsime Khurshudyan (Armenian weightlifter) and Pavel Kryvitski (Belarusian hammer thrower). All were disqualified for doping during the 2012 London Games or 2008 Beijing Games. Results of drug positives from the current Olympics will be released when they get the results back in four to eight years.

Of course we highlight Americans

The eighth silver medalist for the United States was Travis Stevens, who picked up the least-wanted medal in the 81-kilogram (178-pound) division of judo. He was hoping to become the first U.S. man to win gold in judo. The winner was Khasan Khalmurzaev of Russia. Yes, that same country that just came through a systemic doping scandal. The entire judo team was allowed to compete, no doubt because they just look great in a white judogi.

As for the silver medal, surveys of athletes continually say it is their least favorite medal. Think about it, if you finish second you’re a loser. You could have won, but you didn’t. Loser. If you win a bronze there is a good chance you may have over-performed and you beat the person who didn’t get a medal. Odd but understandable logic, indeed.

Big difference: shot or stone

Police may or may not be investigating an incident where windows on a media bus were shattered. No one quite knows what the implement was that caused the glass to break, but one answer is way better than the other. “We don’t know yet if the bus was shot, or it was a stone,” said Andrada, who earlier had to answer questions about the green diving pool.

There were 12 journalists on the bus and three suffered minor injuries, minor being any injury that doesn’t happen to you.

Earlier in the week a bullet ended up in the equestrian media center. Police dismissed it as a stray bullet not meant to harm anyone in the press center.

Help provided by Times staff writers Kevin Baxter, Lisa Dillman, Helene Elliott, Nathan Fenno, Bill Plaschke and David Wharton, who are also trying to make sense of these Olympics.

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