Journalists from around the world weren’t pulling any punches at today’s Olympic press briefing as representatives from Paris 2024, the IOC and World Triathlon were grilled over the postponement of the men’s triathlon. Through it all, though, Aurelie Merle, the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics Executive Director Sport Competitions, and Marisol Casado, the President of World Triathlon (and IOC member), expressed their “optimism” that the water in the Seine will clean up enough for there to be not one, but two triathlon events tomorrow.
“We are all disappointed,” Casado said of the decision to postpone today’s men’s race, “But we are optimistic that we will have a good opportunity to put on the race. At this point we are quite confident that we will have the event tomorrow.”
The data used by the organization to determine whether the water is safe for the athletes come from tests done 24 hours earlier. According to Merle, the numbers from the four tests done at different areas of the course on Monday morning at 3:30 am were between 980 and 1,553 CFU/ 100 ml. That’s well above the 900 level that’s been cited as the upper limit for the race to take place.
“You wouldn’t catch me in there,” says Canadian water quality expert about swimming in the Seine
Merle was asked why the organizers weren’t prepared for this situation, considering that July is typically the rainiest month of the summer here in Paris. Pointing out that the city saw the normal month’s rainfall in 36 hours on Friday and Saturday, Merle said that “based on the data dn the normal rainfall of the summer, we were confident that the event would take place.”
“The amount of rain that fell on Friday and Saturday, that’s why it’s taking a bit longer (for the E. coli levels to come down),” Merle continued.
There’s been over 1.5 billion Euros invested in infrastructure to clean up the Seine as part of the goal of the Games was to “give the Seine back to Parisiens,” Merle said. Despite all that investment, though, when there is lots of rain the sewage system still can’t keep up, which leads to pollution getting into the river.
Duathlon as a contingency option
Merle was asked why there wasn’t an alternate option for the triathlon event, as there is with open water swimming.
When it comes to the open water swim events, “either you swim or cancel the race,” Merle said. With triathlon, there’s an option to change the race to a duathlon.
“It’s the same conditions for everyone,” Casado said in response to questions about the fairness of changing the race format. “This is an adaptation – otherwise we have to cancel the event. This is part of the adaptation to the climate change that we are facing. Sometimes it can be waves, or electrical storms. Our athletes want to compete, so we have to adapt the event.”
Other issues – water current and heat
The folks trying to put on this triathlon event can’t buy a break, it would appear. E. coli is just one of a number of factors that are making things challenging here in Paris. The current is so strong that athletes who weren’t able to draw a favourable start spot under the pontoon might get dropped early in the swim and never be able to get into the race picture.
Then there’s the heat. After a weekend of rain, the weather report is calling for the temperatures to soar over the next few days – possibly up to 35 degrees celsius. With the men starting at 10:45 tomorrow, that means they could be running in scorching conditions. World Triathlon identifies five heat index levels and has contingencies for each of those, according to the event organizers, and added heat measures will be put in place based on the temperature and humidity.
And, as if all that wasn’t enough, the weather report is calling for rain and potentially thunder storms, which isn’t likely to help the conditions in the water at all. That’s likely why organizers are looking to have the men’s race tomorrow, rather than the original contingency day, which is Friday. If the water still isn’t swimmable tomorrow, the next option will be to move things to Friday, but one would imagine by then we’ll be gearing up for a duathlon.
All of which means that triathlon fans should be crossing their fingers that somehow things clean up enough so that we see not one, but two triathlon races here in Paris tomorrow.
The post How did we get here? World press ask tough questions of Paris 2024 and World Triathlon after postponement of men’s race appeared first on Triathlon Magazine Canada.