Olympic Test Swims Cancelled Again in Paris Due to Seine River Pollution
Olympians were once again unable to swim in the Seine River on Sunday. For the third time this month, organizers of the Olympic triathlon events in France had to cancel water-based competitions. Water quality tests indicated that bacterial levels in the Seine River exceed permissible limits, according to Le Parisien.
During the Saturday test events for paratriathlon and due to the lack of water quality assurance, the swimming portion had to be cancelled for the mixed relay, originally scheduled for an 8 AM start.
As a result, the mixed relay will be held in the form of a duathlon. Triathletes will alternate between cycling and running without entering the Seine.
After a Sunday morning meeting involving three technical delegates of the races and the medical delegate of the International Triathlon Union, Paris 2024, the City of Paris, and the Prefecture of the Ile-de-France region, who participated in the water quality tests and encountered consistent discrepancies in the results of water quality analysis, a joint decision was made to convert the test event for the mixed relay from swimming to a duathlon competition.
"The discrepancies between the analyses provided by the laboratory and the high-frequency analysers of the samples were noticed again in the readings taken during the tests on Sunday, August 20, which does not provide the necessary guarantees for the proper conduct of the swimming test," the authorities stated in a joint press release.
Currently, the origin of these "discrepancies" has not been identified by the authorities. However, they note that the relevant services continue their investigations.
Already on Saturday, the organizers were puzzled by the results of these analyses.
"This is quite a remarkable result, and we don't really understand what happened," noted Pierre Rabadan, Deputy Mayor of Paris responsible for sports and the Seine. Laboratory analyses do not match the instantaneous indicators taken in the river."
Recall that last month, Parisians were allowed to swim in the Seine for the first time in 100 years. The ban on swimming in the Seine was introduced in 1923 due to a sharp deterioration in water quality caused by the discharge of industrial wastewater into the river. However, significant efforts in river purification, costing around $1.6 billion, according to local authorities, yielded positive results in July 2023.