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

The Brazilian metropolis will host the 2016 summer Games, the first South American city to do so, but it is struggling with polluted waters on which the athletes will compete.

Heil, who won third spot along with Thomas Ploessel in the 49er class, was told by the Berlin hospital treating him 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 Gloria where there is a constant flow of waste water from the city’s hospitals.”

Recent commissioned tests of the water quality revealed a high level of disease-causing viruses.

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

“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.

“We are also considering with Thomas to sail out of the marina with plastic covers and then wear our normal neopren shoes further out on the water,” Heil said.

“I am also in favour that for all future Rio sailing events there is a doctor who flies with the team so we can be treated on the spot.”

Biologists last year said rivers leading into the bay contained a superbacteria resistant to antibiotics that cure urinary, gastrointestinal and pulmonary infections.