Olympic buzz: You don’t have to be a professor to figure out how poorly things are run in Rio

A look back at Day 8 of competition at the Rio Olympics.

Just sit right back

and you’ll hear a tale …

No need for any polling, keep the experts quiet, silence the spin doctors. It can officially be said: The Rio Games are the worst managed of any Games in our lifetime. And we’re old, so that’s a long time. Atlanta has held the “worst” distinction since 1996 when former IOC potentate Juan Antonio Samaranch did not declare the Games “the best ever” as was his tradition with every other Games.

The conclusion on Rio was reached when yet another venue went awry. On Saturday, the starting platform for the open water swimming broke apart and washed ashore at Copacabana Beach. You can’t make this up. Add in the green water in the diving pool (more on that later) and you have a pretty embarrassing situation.

Rio officials say they have a backup platform, which is good, because the first race is scheduled for Monday.

A tale of a fateful trip …

The stories just keep getting better. Fran Halsall of Britain and Aliaksandra Herasimenia of Belarus almost didn’t qualify for Saturday’s final in the 50 freestyle. On Friday, they along with Jeanette Ottesen of Denmark boarded a bus at the athletes village to take them to the swim stadium at Olympic Park. Only problem is the bus driver, over the protestations of the swimmers, took them to Olympic Stadium, where track and field is held.

It wasn’t quite a three-hour tour, but it was 40 minutes one way and 40 minutes back. Organizers had to juggle the schedule to allow the swimmers to get there and have the appropriate warmup time. Stories of bus drivers getting lost or going in the wrong direction here are as commonplace as the bodegas that litter the beaches.

After all the travails, Herasimenia won the bronze and Halsall finished fourth on Saturday.

The weather

started getting rough …

The storm clouds brewing over the green pool controversy haven’t abated. Think about it, what’s it cost to get a good pool service, a hundred bucks a month, and they clean the filters too?

At long last officials have figured out a way to turn the diving and adjacent pool from green to blue — just drain it and put in fresh water.

The latest guess on what went wrong is they dumped a lot of hydrogen peroxide in the pool, which neutralizes the chlorine. Use one or the other but not both.

When the IOC announced their commitment to a green and sustainable Olympics, guessing this isn’t what they meant.

Obligatory drug item

Track’s governing body spent considerable time hand-wringing over admitting any Russian track athletes to the Games. Their conclusion was that one of the 68 could compete; that’s a batting average of .015 for the Russians, even below Yasiel Puig.

So long jumper Darya Klishina came to Rio. Not so fast. The IAAF banned Klishina on Saturday based on new evidence it said it discovered last week. She has submitted an appeal, and we know how those usually turn out.

john.cherwa@latimes.com

Help provided by Times staff writers Kevin Baxter, Lisa Dillman, Helene Elliott, Nathan Fenno, Bill Plaschke and David Wharton.