The rain in Paris adds drama to the parades, knocks down cyclists and causes the sewers to overflow, threatening gastroenteritis for the triathletes, who were unable to swim on Monday as planned, to discover, near the Pont Alexandre III, the currents that will lull them during their 1,500m swim. The so-called “familiarisation” training sessions announced for 8:00 a.m. were cancelled after the latest bacteriological analyses carried out detected quantities of Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci, indicative of faecal contamination.
The analyses showed E. coli above 1,000 and Enterococci above 400, which are the established limits. The contamination was also visually evident.
“The water does not offer sufficient guarantees to allow the race to take place. This is due to the rain that fell in Paris on 26 and 27 July,” said the international federation (World Triathlon) in a statement, which is cheering: “Given the weather forecast for the next 48 hours, Paris 2024 and the World Triathlon are confident that the water quality will be back below the limits before the start of the triathlon competitions. As observed at the beginning of the month, with the summer conditions (more sun, higher temperatures, prolonged absence of rain) the water quality of the Seine has improved considerably.”
The events are scheduled for Tuesday 30th (men’s), Wednesday 31st (women’s) and Monday 5th August (mixed relay). Open water swimming events are scheduled for Thursday 8th and Friday 9th. Triathlon, which had to cancel some swimming heats in the practice events a year ago, has no plan B. In the event that the sun and heat do not clear the water, a duathlon will be held.
The water quality scale drawn up by the swimming and triathlon federations is more permissive than the scale used to authorise bathing by the general public. Diarrhoea in a triathlete who accidentally drinks water during his race would be less dangerous than an epidemic of gastroenteritis among Parisians, to whom their mayor, Anne Hidalgo, has promised a clean and bathing-friendly Seine. On 17 July, to prove that everything was going well, she herself, accompanied by Tony Estanguet, the president of the organising committee for the Games, went to the water supply centre to check the water quality. The analyses of 15 July, made public by the NGO Surfrider Foundation, showed that day a quantity of 920 E. coli per 100ml of water, almost at the limit for athletes but higher than that of the general public. “At no time during the sampling carried out in 2023 and 2024 was the water of the Seine considered to be good, contrary to what the City Council claims,” the NGO points out. “Only on two occasions, in the fall of 2023 and in July 2024, was it rated as average (between 500 and 1,000 E. coli and between 200 and 400 Enterococci). But on almost all occasions, it was too contaminated to be practicable.”
Swimming in the Seine has been a Parisian dream for 101 years, when an order from the prefect banned it because of the filth of the water, a sewage dump. In 1990, when he was mayor of the capital, President Jacques Chirac falsely promised that under his mandate it would be possible to swim again, and Hidalgo, more than 30 years later, has taken up the baton. The commitment and the investment – more than 1.4 billion euros of investment in treatment plants with an organic disinfectant, performic acid, upstream and in improving the sewage network and collectors of the city – have made the promise almost a reality. “It will be one of the most wonderful legacies of the Games,” promised Hidalgo when inaugurating an urban beach on the docks under the Eiffel Tower. The leaks in thousands of drainage pipes of the old buildings that flank the river have been repaired. mussel boats Tourists and barges that ply the river can no longer empty their baths directly into the river, as they used to. The tons of rubbish collected, more than 325 a few years ago, have been significantly reduced.
But everything, whether it’s wishes, promises or investments, ultimately depends on nature. As Parisians have known for decades, the warmer the water, the better; the more current the water, the worse.
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