Water Turns Green, Swimmers Stay Tan : Goodwill Games: Swedes go home, but U.S. team competes; times are slow in still-murky pool.

They laughed about it, sang songs about it, bottled it and, eventually, even swam in it. Well, most of them did. The Swedes took one glance at it Sunday and said dasvadanya .

It was the water for the Goodwill Games in the SKA Swimming Pool, which Martin Zubero, a Floridian who represents Spain, renamed “the Black Lagoon.”

In fact, the water was not black. It was more like evergreen.

When B.J. Bedford of Etna, N.H., climbed out of it, the first thing she did was to make sure she was still tan.

“I thought I would come out of there looking like the Incredible Hulk,” she said.

Bedford made her comment after the first of her three races, which was one fewer than some swam as all 20 events were held on one day. The first half of the program had been scheduled for Saturday, but was postponed after a mishap last week involving the charcoal in the filtration system, which made the water look like the La Brea Tar Pits. Sunday, it was considered clear enough for swimming.

The times, even for a lull in the season when most of the swimmers are not shaved and tapered, were slow as swimmers could not see the wall from more than a foot or two away and therefore became tentative on their turns.

In the women’s 400-meter medley, Chinese backstroker Bai Xiuyu flipped into her turn too early and had to take two freestyle strokes instead of one to reach the wall. That should have cost the Chinese a disqualification, but they instead were awarded the gold medal as the violation was overlooked. Bai admitted her error and apologized, saying that she was disoriented because of the murky water.

U.S. Coach Frank Comfort of North Carolina, whose relay team finished second, is still trying to figure how that affected a swimmer who spends virtually her entire race looking at the ceiling.

“You’ve just got to roll with the punches,” he said with a shrug.

The U.S. team has taken more of them than Chuck Wepner, the “Bayonne Bleeder,” since arriving here last Wednesday. That was the day the pool was closed. In search of an alternative for practice Thursday, the swimmers were taken to a naval base an hour and a half outside the city. The pool there was one that only algae could love. They found a better pool closer to their hotel Friday, but it was only 25 meters long.

That was the night the organizers decided to push back the start of the swimming by 24 hours. That also was the night the U.S. swimmers took a poll to find out how many thought they would ever be allowed to compete. The answer was none.

But they maintained their sense of perspective, sightseeing during the day and talking positively at night.

“We’re spoiled,” said Angel Martino of Americus, Ga. “We’re so used to everything going perfectly in the United States. Then we go to an international competition where everything is not perfect and we let it blow our cool.

“We had some meetings here, just with the swimmers, to remind ourselves to relax. We didn’t elect a captain. We just said that everyone on the team is a captain.”

They did, however, elect a designated complainer.

Taking a cue from “The Lion King,” the swimmers sang “Hakuna Matata,” which roughly translates to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Between choruses, Melvin Stewart of Charlotte, N.C., supplied the complaint of the moment. He had plenty to choose from--jet lag, stomach cramps, malnutrition, water from the tap, water in the pool, etc.

“I’m the biggest wimp in the world,” he said.

Saturday afternoon, the team finally got permission to enter the SKA Swimming Pool.

One of the first swimmers in was Scott Jett of Sanger, Calif.

“It’s water, just like American water,” he told his teammates when he emerged.

Qualifying the remark later for reporters, he said: “I grew up swimming in lakes and rivers.”

Stewart dived and wrote his name with his finger in the dirt at the bottom. Others filled bottles with the water to take home as souvenirs. “No one would believe us if we just tried to explain it to them,” said Nicole Haislett of St. Petersburg--the one in Florida.

After Sunday’s morning session, Haislett was no longer able to maintain her happy face. She acted as if she would rather have been on a plane home, like the Swedes.

“I think maybe that would have been an option for us if we weren’t so far from home,” she said. “But to come this far and go home without doing anything would have been silly. But I don’t blame the Swedes.”

Asked if she was glad she came, she said: “Honestly? Not really. While I’m here, I’m trying to make the best of it. But I’d rather have stayed home with my own schedule, my own training.”

Steve West, a breaststroker from Huntington Beach, said he had no problem with the water because he swims with his eyes closed. He swam a personal best while finishing second in the 200-meter breaststroke behind Russia’s Andrei Ivanov.

When it was suggested that the water was too warm, another complaint of the swimmers, he said: “Just a little.”

One of his Russian competitors, Andrei Korneyev, interrupted. “Not just a little,” he said.

By Sunday night, the heat of the water had been turned down and the color had improved to olive green. Claiming that she could detect the lanes even in the deep end, Michelle Griglione said the pool was better than the one where she earned her water wings at the Alexandria, Va., YMCA.

“Of course,” she added, “the health department closed that one down.”