Category: Swimming & Diving

• Clean Water Alliance lays out three-part strategy for action
• ‘Further and faster action on pollution’ needed, says group

Seven water-based sports, including British Rowing, British Triathlon and Swim England, have formed an alliance to demand the government go “further and faster” in tackling water pollution.

It comes less than a month after the Boat Race was marred by Oxford men’s crew getting sick with E Coli amid high levels of sewage in the Thames, and with concerns mounting over huge levels of sewage in Britain’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Last month an Environment Agency report also found that raw sewage was discharged for more than 3.6m hours into rivers and seas last year, a 105% increase on the previous 12 months.

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Doping case with Chinese swimmers has brought years of pent-up feeling into public domain – and shows no sign of stopping

At its glitzy 25th anniversary gala in Lausanne last month, the World Anti-Doping Agency screened a slick montage highlighting how it had changed sport for the better. There were images of Muhammad Ali defying Parkinson’s to light the Olympic flame and Pelé lifting the World Cup, before a history lesson – and a promise. “Today Wada is a more representative, accountable and transparent organisation,” explained its director general, Olivier Niggli, “that truly has athletes at the heart of everything we do.”

Not everyone in the room was buying it – one source felt it was too PR-focused, while another raised their eyebrows when Thomas Bach – the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – and the former Wada president Sir Craig Reedie picked up awards. However, frustrations with Wada were largely limited to corridor conversations. It turned out to be the relative calm before the thermonuclear storm.

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