The final green light given at 3.30 am, just a few hours before the launch of the first swimmers, was a first relief for the organisers. This Wednesday, August 16, at 8 a.m., from a pontoon at the foot of the Alexandre-III bridge, 130 triathletes had to dive into the Seine to recognize the course of the competition scheduled until August 20, and which serves as a dress rehearsal for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
These athletes, among the best in the world, are the first to be officially able to swim in the river since a multitude of projects were launched in 2016 to make it swimmable again. If all goes well, i.e. if the weather forecast holds and no major storms fall on Ile-de-France by then, 80 paratriathletes will in turn familiarize themselves with the currents, Friday, before contesting their full race this weekend.
Monday, less than forty-eight hours from the start of the event, doubt about the holding of it still hovered. Storms threatened; heavy rainfall at the start of the weekend had degraded the bacteriological quality of the water. These are the same reasons which led, on the weekend of August 5 and 6, to the cancellation of an event of the open water swimming world championships, which was also to serve as a pre-Olympic test. At the end of July, it had rained in Paris as never over this period for twenty years, explained the authorities. The sewage networks were overloaded. However, in these cases, the overflow is discharged into the river.
A posteriori, the City of Paris assured that the quality of the water was good. But during the nocturnal meeting where everything is decided, the regulatory data from which the organizer of the event decides was unequivocal: the concentration ofEscherichia coli − the micro-organisms which provide information on the presence of faecal contamination − is higher than the authorized threshold (1,000 colony-forming units per 100 ml of water), the competition could therefore not take place. This same first weekend of August, 57 triathletes were ill after running a test of the triathlon world championships in England.
Grand decor
Less than a year from the opening ceremony, these hazards and uncertainties are a reminder of the immense bet and the challenge that the Paris 2024 teams have taken on by scheduling the 10 km marathon swimming events and those of the triathlon and paratriathlon. in the heart of the capital. At the foot of one of the most beautiful bridges in Paris, between the Grand-Palais and the Eiffel Tower, the decor is undeniably grandiose.
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