Rain in Paris on Friday and Saturday muddied the Seine for the next few hours, forcing organizers to cancel Sunday morning’s planned triathlon practice on the river, but they remain “hopeful” the events will go ahead on Tuesday and Wednesday. .
The triathlon is the first Olympic event to be held on the Seine before open water swimming in the second week of the Paris Olympics.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday local time, the Olympic Organizing Committee, the International Triathlon Federation and local authorities took a “joint decision to cancel the swimming part of the triathlon practice” scheduled for Sunday because “the water conditions did not provide sufficient guarantees,” they pointed out in a press release.
By Saturday afternoon, organizers had already warned that the previous day’s flooding, about 16mm of water, would reduce water quality.
Photo by MEGA/WENN
“Sports Health”
They did not mention the levels of E.Coli and enterococci bacteria on Sunday, which must be below a certain limit, but highlighted the “priority of athletes’ health”.
Before swimming on Tuesday and Wednesday, the triathletes decided to continue training in the swimming pool, especially in the legendary Georges Valery swimming pool in the east of Paris, where they had already swum the athletes, and there is a chance to “get used to” the river. 1924 Olympic Games.
Organizers said the “running and cycling events” for Sunday morning training “will go ahead as planned”.
Ten days after Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo bathed in water, promising Parisians that they could swim in the river next summer, triathletes will not be able to test the Seine on Sunday morning.
A believer in race
Due to heavy rains, the water quality in Cheney was unswimmable for most of June. On the other hand, water quality analysis was recently conducted within sanitary standards from July 17 to 23, six days a week.
“Based on the weather forecast for the next 48 hours, Paris 2024 and World Triathlon hope that water quality will return below the threshold before the start of the triathlon on July 30,” they assured.
The sun was expected to return to the French capital this Sunday.
Photo by AFP
On Saturday, USA Triathlon Team Manager expressed his optimism: “We have a good chance to do the perfect triathlon,” said USA Triathlon Team High Performance Manager Scott Schnitzspan. “With intensive monitoring and seeing how the (engineered rainwater harvesting) system responds to rainfall, we have a good chance of doing the full triathlon,” he added.
The state and Ile-de-France communities have paid €1.4 billion since 2016 to make the Seine and its main tributary the Marne navigable.
Modernizing sewage treatment plants, connecting barges to the sewage system, collecting plastic waste… The project resulted in five major works, including a real underground cathedral excavated near d’Austerlitz station, a rainwater and sewage storage tank. The very center of Paris.
