Brazilians fans’ taunting “Zika” jeer at the 2016 Olympics is starting to spread. It began at U.S. women’s soccer matches, with spectators directing the chant at American goalkeeper Hope Solo, who in the runup to the games tweeted a photo of herself covered in mosquito netting and holding an enormous jug of bug spray. The heckling has since made its way to the Beach Volleyball Arena on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach. It was especially loud, as you’ll hear above, during Saturday night’s match between the United States’ Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena and Austria’s Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl.
As far as I can tell, neither Dalhausser nor Lucena have made any public comments about the virus’s potential risks. In an interview with the Daytona Beach News-Journal back in June, Dalhausser downplayed concerns about Zika while highlighting Brazil’s political instability:
“I’m more worried about the whole political unrest that’s going on there, impeaching the President (Dilma Rousseff). It’s pretty messy,” Dalhausser said.
Dalhausser also said he’s not surprised by the recent outcry over the virus.
“This is my third Olympics, and every year there’s something,” Dalhausser said. “In Beijing, it was the pollution and how it was going to be so terrible. It was pretty bad for the first few days, but then a big storm came through and blew everything away. In London, it was ‘Are they going to get everything done in time?’ And they managed a way to pull it off.”
“I’m sure there will be problems, but everything will go off without a hitch.”
A week ago, Reuters reported that beach volleyball players Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweat of the U.S. also heard the chant. The news service reported:
Neither Sweat nor Fendrick is known for expressing alarm over playing under the threat of the virus—indeed in an interview with a U.S. channel last week, Fendrick called the water quality in Brazil and Zika “non-factors” for the duo.
If the Zika jeers aimed at Hope Solo were a limited but powerful way for Brazilians to push back against a foreigner’s fearmongering, those directed at the beach volleyball players suggest the chant has morphed into an expression of broader anti-American sentiment. Spanish basketball player Pau Gasol, for one, was extremely outspoken about the potential risks of Zika. He considered skipping the games and even freezing his sperm, despite the low risk of acquiring the virus in the first place. (The CDC recommends that men who may have been exposed to Zika wait eight weeks before having unprotected sex.) Gasol ultimately decided to come to Brazil. It does not appear that anyone has chanted “Zika” in his direction thus far.
The next possible target for the Zika-chanting masses: the American duo of Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross, who’ll take on Australia in the women’s beach volleyball quarterfinals on Sunday night at 11 p.m. ET.
