There will be no “familiarization” Triathletes with the Seine before the individual events: the rains that fell on Friday and Saturday in Paris have soiled the Seine and forced the organizers of the Olympic Games to cancel the second training session planned for Monday morning in the river, after that of Sunday.
But the organizers remain “confident” on holding the tests on Tuesday and Wednesday, they said on the night of Sunday to Monday.
After a meeting with the Olympic organizing committee, local authorities and Météo-France, the International Triathlon Federation took the “decision to cancel the swimming part of the triathlon familiarization” scheduled for Monday morning, like the day before, because the “water quality levels (…) do not provide sufficient guarantees”Paris 2024 and World Triathlon said in a statement.
Ceci “is due to the rains that fell on Paris” Friday, during the opening ceremony, and Saturday, they said.
A resident swims in the Seine, in Paris, July 17, 2024 / JOEL SAGET / AFP
They did not specify the level of E.Coli and enterococci bacteria which must be below a certain threshold, but recalled that “The priority is the health of the athletes”.
Decisions on whether or not athletes are allowed to swim in the river are made the night before the event based on a number of factors, including water quality analyses carried out the day before, which take 24 hours to deliver their verdict.
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If the water quality is insufficient on D-1, the organizers have planned “contingency days” to postpone the tests.
The triathlon is the first Olympic discipline to be held in the Seine, before open water swimming in the second week of the Paris Olympics.
The men’s individual triathlon event is scheduled to start at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, followed by the women’s individual event at the same time on Wednesday.
Pierre Le Corre, Léo Bergère and Dorian Coninx (from left to right) on the podium of the European Championships, August 13, 2022 in Munich / INA FASSBENDER / AFP/Archives
This will therefore be without prior reconnaissance of the swimming route in the river, starting from the Pont Alexandre-III. And this while the flow of the Seine, swollen by the rains of recent weeks, is three times higher than a usual summer level (more than 400 m3/second Monday morning, compared to 100 to 150 in normal times).
The mixed relay is scheduled for August 5.
The organizers are “confident that water quality will return to below limits before the start of triathlon competitions on July 30” Tuesday and this “taking into account the weather forecast for the next 36 hours”.
“Tomorrow things will be restored”assured the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo on France Bleu Paris, recalling that “The rain we had on Friday was exceptional”.
However, beware of thunderstorms ahead of Wednesday’s event.
“We are forecasting thunderstorms tomorrow evening that will move up from the Centre-Val-de-Loire towards the Paris region.”indicated one of the forecasters from Météo France, Christophe Calas, to a few journalists on Monday from the Cojo headquarters.
“There are still many uncertainties about their trajectories, their intensity, we cannot yet make any statements”he said. But “If a storm passes over Paris tomorrow evening and causes significant amounts of precipitation, this will impact the quality of the water in the Seine.”he detailed.
A City Hall source said the results of Sunday’s water tests were changing ” in the right direction “ compared to those on Saturday. She said she was confident that male triathletes would be able to swim in the Seine as early as Tuesday.
It is the moment of truth for the organizers of the Paris Olympic Games: the State and the Paris region’s local authorities have invested 1.4 billion euros to make the Seine and its main tributary, the Marne, swimmable for the Olympic Games and then for the general public.
“It is because of all these investments that the situation is recovering very quickly.”said Anne Hidalgo on France Bleu.
Due to heavy rains, the water in the Seine had been of poor quality for much of June, but it has been improving since then: water quality analyses were recently within health standards six days out of seven from July 17 to 23.
