Health bosses have confirmed that at least 57 people have fallen sick and are suffering from diarrhoea after swimming in the sea during the World Triathlon Championships in Sunderland.
Approximately 2,000 people took part in the major tournament last weekend, which saw athletes swim in the sea at Roker Beach, which was given a prestigious Blue Flag award for its cleanliness only two years ago.
A test run by the UK’s Environmental Agency only three days before the event revealed that there were 3,900 E. Coli colonies per 100ml, which is almost 40 times higher than typical readings from June.
E. Coli bacteria can cause severe stomach and life-threatening attacks of diarrhoea.
A newspaper outlet reported that the British Triathlon, which handles official triathlons in the United Kingdom, said these results were only published after the event took place and that the tests were conducted outside the area where its sea swimming event occurred.
It added that its own tests showed the waters had passed the required standards for the triathlon.
In 2022 alone, England and Wales suffered more than 380,000 spills, or almost 2,350,000 hours, of treated sewage and overflows of untreated sewage.
Water companies up and down the country have come under fire for allegedly not doing enough to clean up their messes.
In June, Thames Water’s chief executive Sarah Bentley dramatically resigned from her post after the water company was heavily criticised for spilling raw sewage into the sea 22 times a day, as well as being £14 billion in debt.
Earlier this year, the campaign group Surfers Against Sewage released an interactive map to warn Brits of the beaches they need to avoid due to high levels of sewage.
Tope Australian athlete Jake Birthwhistle, who’s won several triathlons across the world, said in an Instagram post earlier this week that he’d been feeling pretty rubbish since the race, but he guessed that was what you got when you swim in sewage.
He said he wasn’t feeling great in the individual race so decided to save himself for a good relay leg, and there were some positives to take away leading into Paris in two weeks, but the swim should have been cancelled.
Other athletes who said they were also at Roker Beach last weekend agreed, with one person saying in a comment response that was why they spent Monday night with their head in the toilet after racing Sunday morning.
This country has become one of the largest sewage works, and it doesn’t function anymore. We appear to be going backwards. We were once famous for our Blue Flag beaches, but now Britain is one of the largest cesspits.
This is what taking back control looks like. So, now sewage companies can dump their waste to their heart’s content without any kind of EU regulation holding them back. This just about sums up Britain now – it’s just a dumping ground.
We’re now going back to pre-privatisation days when our waterways, beaches and coastal waters were far more polluted than they are now. Infrastructure and utility regulators need the sharpest teeth and the most transparency.
Some people voted for Brexit, so this is what they have to look forward to, and if nothing is done about it, then it will just get worse.
Of course, sewage dumping has happened before but they seemed to be isolated cases and water companies were battered with fines when they did so. Nowadays, they’ve been given carte blanche to dump as much as they like and get away with a very small penalty, which then gets made up by higher bills paid by the masses.
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