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  Reality bites: Lifeguard for champion swimmers!

Reality bites: Lifeguard for champion swimmers!

AFP
Published : Aug 8, 2016, 1:35 am IST
Updated : Aug 8, 2016, 1:35 am IST

Josue Ribeiro es dos Santos, a mototaxi driver with a month and a half of training, will watch over Michael Phelps and the rest of the world’s best swimmers as a lifeguard at the Rio swimming pool.

Josue Ribeiro es dos Santos, a mototaxi driver with a month and a half of training, will watch over Michael Phelps and the rest of the world’s best swimmers as a lifeguard at the Rio swimming pool.

A Rio de Janeiro law passed in 2001 requires that all residential, hotel and sports club swimming pools have permanent lifeguards.

That includes the Olympic Aquatic Stadium in Rio, where 18-time Olympic gold medallist Phelps and company kick off eight days of competition on Saturday.

As the likes of world record-holders Katie Ledecky, Ryan Lochte, Cate Campbell and Sun Yang battle for gold, Ribeiro will patrol the pool deck in his yellow uniform — shorts, cap and flipflops and a shirt with “LIFEGUARD” emblazoned in English and Portuguese — ready to fling his flotation device to any Olympian in distress.

Ribeiro completed a lifeguard course lasting just six weeks when previously training as a firefighter. “Thank God they hired me,” he said.

The Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported that 78 lifeguards were hired at a salary of 1,500 reales (about $470) to patrol the seven pools in use at the Games — including competition and training facilities.

Josue, who has worked as a lifeguard for six years at various pools, is currently driving a mototaxi in Guaratiba, a popular neighbourhood some 27km west of the Barra Olympic Park. It takes him about an hour to get to the Barra Olympic park each day.

Once there, the reality is that he has little to do.

He ambles up and down the pool deck, watching the athletes swim up and down and listening to coaches whistle or issue instructions in languages he doesn't understand.

From time to time he stops to converse with a colleague, or help reinstall a lane line or pick up a poster.

Although he agrees that the chance of an Olympic swimmer drowning is virtually nil, he says he never lets down his guard. “We must be always active because they may feel some cramping or sink. We are there to help them.”

The most famous accident in an Olympic pool came in Seoul in 1988, when American Greg Louganis hit his head on the springboard.

He emerged from the pool without assistance and recovered to retain his springboard and platform titles.

Location: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro