Concerns over the water quality of the River Seine continue, as the athlete's familiarization training sessions for the 10k open swim events were cancelled on Tuesday. The women's race is scheduled to take place on Thursday, with the men's event on Friday.
Water quality assessments on the river revealed that the levels of Enterococci were above the maximum threshold set by the World Aquatics body. Enterococci is an indicator of faecal pollution.
The state of the Seine has been a blot on the Paris Olympics. Concerns were raised after Belgium withdrew its team from the mixed relay triathlon due to one of its competitors, Claire Michel, falling ill. She'd early swam in the river in the female triathlon event, finishing 38th. This state of affairs wasn't a total shock; in the lead up to the three triathlon events, several training sessions also had to be cancelled.
This is all despite Paris spending 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) on improvements to the river's infrastructure in an attempt to clean it up before the games.
Having assessed the quality of the Seine's water, the World Aquatics body released a statement saying that: "Enterococci levels exceeded World Aquatics maximum thresholds during the morning review. The latest Enterococci samples (taken between 12:30 and 13:20 on 4 August) showed levels exceeding the maximum acceptable World Aquatics thresholds.”
However, the statement went on to say that: "With a favourable weather forecast and forward-looking analysis, World Aquatics and Paris 2024 remain confident that the Marathon Swimming competitions on 8 and 9 August will proceed as planned.”
Anne Descamps, Paris 2024 executive director of communications, was keen to play down the situation, stating that the decision to cancel the training session was “taken with an abundance of caution”.
The latest water quality assessment took place on Sunday 4 August, before Monday's mixed triathlon event, which went ahead. Descamps quelled concerns by saying that the high readings were taken in a separate part of the river to where the triathlon swim took place.
It remains to be seen whether the Marathon Swimming competitions will go ahead on Thursday and Friday, though Olympics organizers will be hoping for no further setbacks.
