Ever since the first triathlon events took place at the Sydney Games in 2000, triathlon has enjoyed a new spotlight around the world as all eyes focus on the sport’s elite. This year’s Games in Paris promise to be a showcase in other ways, too – in addition to the exciting racing, fans will see the athletes fly by some of the city’s most spectacular attractions. To do all that, organizers have been forced to invest billions of Euros just to ensure the swim will be possible in the Seine River. There’s lots of upside to all that, though. In addition to making for a beautiful course, the legacy of these Games should offer Parisiens the opportunity to swim in the Seine River themselves for years to come.
The Olympic swim has often been plagued with water quality issues – there were concerns in London in 2012, Rio in 2016 and the 2020 Games in Tokyo. As has become the norm, it would appear, concerns are being raised once again for this year’s Games.
The Seine
That legacy of a cleanup of the Seine River hasn’t gone exactly according to plan, so there’s a chance that the swim will need to be cancelled for the race, or the event might even be postponed to later in the Games. For last year’s test event, the elite individual races did include the swim, but the swim was cancelled for the Para and mixed relay races. (An Open Water World Cup scheduled a few weeks before the Paris Test Event was cancelled due to poor water quality.)
According to a BBC report, “recent testing by charity Surfrider Foundation Europe revealed ‘alarming’ levels of E. coli in the river.”
Recent samplings carried out by our teams reveal alarming levels of bacteriological #pollution at the Alexandre III Bridge: the starting point for the #Olympic and Paralympic #triathlon and #marathon swimming events. #bacteria 2/6 pic.twitter.com/vkIr0hbMic
— Surfrider Europe (@surfridereurope) April 8, 2024
Recent samplings carried out by our teams reveal alarming levels of bacteriological The hope is that five different projects designed to increase the capacity of the sewage network would reduce amount of pollution going into the river and make the water safe for swimming. There’s also a new reservoir being constructed which should be able to store and treat water from the river, and milliions of Euros are being spent on connecting homes to the new sewage networks.
The fear, though, is that heavy rain might overwhelm the system and reduce the water quality.
“We can postpone for rainy conditions,” Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet said at the SportAccord conference in Birmingham, as first reported by the Guardian. “Because it’s programmed at the beginning of the Games, we can wait for better conditions. So we are confident that it will be possible to use the Seine.”
“And there is a final decision where we could not swim – it’s part of the rules of the International Federation. It’s what we want to avoid, of course.”
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