Drop it like it's hot: Canadian swimmers pulled from marathon due to water temperatures

Swimming Canada announced on Saturday that due to water temperatures caused by the recent hot weather, Canadian athletes will not compete in the open water marathon swim at the Summer Universiade in Taipei. 

The race was set to take place early Sunday morning local time. 

Furthermore, Swimming Canada stated that despite the event being well organized with a quality safety plan, it was not able to satisfy all items on its safety checklist. 

This included an independent final temperature measurement that was outside the maximum allowable range of 31 C established by FINA.

"Safety is always my first concern, and it's been the primary area of discussion since our arrival," said Swimming Canada distance and open water coach Mark Perry.

"We have a very comprehensive Red-Amber-Green rated safety system that we use to assess all safety issues before making a decision on whether it's safe for our athletes to compete. In this case, we feel the conditions warrant withdrawing from the race."

"Safety is our main concern," added Swimming Canada CEO Ahmed El-Awadi. "We support the decision of the staff to withdraw the athletes. The reality is you cannot control the weather and we are not willing to place our athletes at risk."