Athlete deliberately tries to infect himself with bacteria just so he can compete in Olympics

An Olympic athlete has purposely tried to infect himself with bacteria ahead of his upcoming competition.

We've seen athletes go to some extreme lengths so far to compete in the Paris Olympics, and this has just taken things to a whole new level.

One athlete, Matt Dawson, went as far as to amputate his finger in order to compete with the Australian men's hockey team.

His radical decision came after he unfortunately broke a finger on his right hand whilst training a few weeks back.

Olympic athletes have been going to extreme lengths in order to compete. (Jörg Schüler/Getty Images)

He was later informed that it would have taken months for him to recover from the surgery to repair it, as per the BBC.

So, in order to ensure he could still compete, he made the wild choice to instead amputate it down to the knuckle, so he'd be able to participate in his third Olympics Games - taking on Argentina on Saturday (27 July) - just 16 days after the injury.

Speaking on the Parlez Vous Hockey podcast, Dawson explained: "I'm definitely closer to the end of my career than the start and, who knows, this could be my last [Olympics], and if I felt that I could still perform at my best then that's what I was going to do.

"If taking the top of my finger was the price I had to pay, that's what I would do."

But one athlete is purposely trying to infect himself in preparation for a triathlon, that was set to be held in the River Seine on Tuesday (July 30), but was postponed due to the water conditions.

The water conditions are not fit for athletes to swim in. (Getty Stock Image)

Seth Rider, the Team USA athlete, was prepared for dirty water after trying to infect himself with E. coli weeks before the event.

Speaking to the BBC, Rider explained: "We know that there's going to be some E. coli exposure, so I just try to increase my E. coli threshold by exposing myself to a bit of E. coli in your day-to-day life.

"Just little things throughout your day, like, not washing your hands after you go to the bathroom and stuff like this."

And whilst it sounds like a strange idea, it's probably quite a smart bit of preparation.

Despite this, the dirty water conditions in Paris are that dangerous, that the swimming part of the triathlon event could be called off all together - which kind of defeats the idea of a triathlon.

Belgium’s Marten van Riel has said: "If the priority was the health of the athletes, this event would have been moved to another location a long time ago."