• Erik Heil takes case to Germany’s Olympic federation and Rio 2016 organisers • Heil: ‘I have never in my life had infections on the legs. Never!’

The German sailor Erik Heil, who was third at the Rio 2016 Olympic test event this month, is being treated for several infections that he claims were caused by the polluted waters during the sailing regatta there.

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His case has been taken up by the German Olympic Sports Confederation, which said it would be informing the Rio 2016 organisers and the international sailing federation.

Rio will host the summer Games, the first South American city to do so, but it is struggling with polluted water at venues.

Heil, who finished third with Thomas Ploessel in the 49er class, was told by a Berlin hospital that he had been infected by multi-resistant germs, the German sailing team said.

“I have never in my life had infections on the legs. Never!” Heil said on the sailing team’s Olympic blog. “I assume I picked that up at the test regatta. The cause should be the Marina da Glória where there is a constant flow of waste water from the city’s hospitals.”

The waters along Rio’s Atlantic coast, including Guanabara Bay where the Olympic sailing events will be held, have been polluted for years and successive governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on clean-ups to little effect.

The German confederation’s chief executive, Michael Vesper, said: “We contacted Erik Heil and the German sailing federation and are taking this case seriously,” he said.

“The [German] sailing federation will inform Rio 2016 organisers and the international sailing federation,” Vesper said. “I already raised the issue of water quality during last week’s chef de mission meeting in Rio and the mayor of the city said it was their responsibility as this was not an Olympic problem but a problem of the city of Rio that needs to be tackled and solved.”

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Last year biologists said rivers leading into the bay contained a super-bacteria resistant to antibiotics used to treat urinary, gastrointestinal and pulmonary infections.

“We will try to arrive relatively late to Rio in the future so that any illness appears towards the end of the regatta or even when we are back home,” Heil said in his blog. “We are also considering sailing out of the marina with plastic covers on and then wear our normal neopren shoes further out on the water.”

When Rio bid to host the Games, the city trumpeted the clean-up and said it would cut the amount of sewage flowing into the bay by 80%. However, it has since admitted it is unlikely to meet that target. The amount of sewage treated before reaching the bay had risen from 17 to 49%.