Could Rio’s Olympic pool have given some swimmers an unfair edge?

Researchers say that a current running through the pool may have unfairly helped swimmers in the outside lanes. (Getty)

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For much of the past week, Rio’s bright-green, fart-smelling, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo pools dominated headlines, but now, it’s the Olympic swimming pool that is coming under scrutiny.

Researchers have suggested that there may have been a current running through the pool, giving swimmers in the outside lanes an unfair advantage in the 50-freestyle events.

Joel Stager, director of Indiana University’s Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming told The Wall Street Journal the current is due to the same design flaw that affected 50-meter freestyle results at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona. The two pools were made by the same company, Myrtha Pools.

In longer races, the effect of the current would be reversed when swimmers changed directions. But, in the 50-freestyle sprint, a slight drag or a push could be the difference between grabbing a medal and going home empty-handed.

Stager noted that all but one of the 16 men and women who qualified for the 50-meter semifinals swam out of one of the five outside lanes. Five of the six medalists in the events swam in the outside lanes, save for gold medalist Anthony Ervin, who won out of lane 3.

In addition, Stager found that swimmers who swam in lanes 4-8 in preliminary rounds and then moved to the inside lanes posted slower times.

“It’s a big deal,” Stager told the Journal. “This is horrific.”

Barry Revzin did a detailed analysis of swimming results for Swim Swam, and found considerable differences in splits for swimmers in the 400-meter, 800-meter and 1,500-meter races depending on which direction they were swimming.

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Revzin crunched the numbers and discovered that 48 percent of the improvement from heats to semifinals and finals can be attributed to swimmers moving to the outside lanes. Revzin discovered a 0.2 percent improvement per lane as swimmers moved up to the higher lanes. That may not seem like much, until you consider that 0.12 seconds separated gold medalist Pernille Blume from sixth-place finisher Ranomi Kromowidjojo.

Myrtha Pools board chairman Trevor Tiffany told The Wall Street Journal that the company tested for a current before the competition and concluded that there was no movement of water.

“If we saw there was a current, we’d have done something about it,” Tiffany said. “There was no indication whatsoever.”