After Australia’s Moesha Johnson won a silver medal in the gruelling 10km marathon swim, she immediately knew what to do.
Yes, there was some celebrating with gold medallist and good friend Sharon van Rouwendaal, but there was something else that just had to be done …. quickly.
So before the time Johnson — who was making her Olympics debut — got around to facing the media in Paris, she grabbed a Coke … and gulped it down.
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“The myth of Coca-Cola is true,” Moesha Johnson told the Wall Street Journal.
“We will often have a Coca-Cola afterwards just to try to flush out anything inside of us.”
Medical evidence does not really back up Johnson’s assertion, but athletes are paranoid about the River Seine’s water quality after various reports.
Social media account Record GBA says “Paris organisers’ worst fears have come true after mutiple athletes fell seriously ill after competing in the triathlon”.
Belgium forced to withdraw from the mixed triathlon in Paris after one of their athletes was reportedly hospitalised with an E.coli infection.
Claire Michel, who finished 38th in the women’s triathlon on Wednesday, withdrew from the race, which left Belgium with no choice but to withdraw their entire team.
Michel was reportedly sick for four days before she was pulled out of the race.
And various reports say Swiss triathlete Adrien Briffod is also “seriously ill” following the men’s individual event.
Combined with pictures of athletes getting out of the water and vomiting, the concern is obvious.
And Johnson will take extra precaution with antibiotics and mouth and ear sterilisation.
Australia’s medical team will also monitor her.
The problems stem from the city’s centuries-old infrastructure.
It cannot cope with heavy rain and sewage is said to leak into the drainage basin which seeps into the river.
After the triathlon Hungary’s Bettina Fabian said she spotted “some brown things” in the water.
“I hope it’s not what I thought it was. I am concerned …,” revealing her precautionary drink was Hungarian palinka (a fruit brandy).
While the water was one thing, Johnson said other obstacles in the river also caused chaos during her marathon swim.
“We’ve all got quite beaten up,” she said.
“One of the boats had plants in it with, like, I don’t know, like, spikes, and we’ve got scratches on us.
“Normally you’re just battling with the other girls, and that’s what’s the rough part.
“But we’re actually battling the course a lot today, and I think the hardest part was, if you moved over a metre to try and pass someone, the current was just that much more dramatic.
“You probably saw us hugging the edge of the wall. I hit the wall a few times unintentionally, but as soon as you moved over, you were just pushing against a current and coming in to that pontoon at the end was just such hard work.”
Van Rouwendaal timed her run to perfection, moving past Johnson with about 200m to go to clinch gold in a time of two hours three minutes 34.2 seconds.
Johnson touched five seconds behind in 2:03.39.7.
“Sharon and I are best friends. The dream for us was just one of us first, one of us second — and it was just a matter of who was going to get one and two,” Johnson said.
“You both put it on the line out there and I don’t mind what colour it is, honestly. I fought to the end, put everything out there and so this is like a gold medal to me.
“And to see Sharon win, I can’t be happier for her, that’s just so special. She’s the GOAT of our sport.”