By Helen Reid
PARIS (Reuters) -Athletes dived into the Seine on Wednesday for the Olympic women's triathlon after water tests showed lower levels of bacteria, ending days of uncertainty over whether the central Paris swim was viable after heavy rains.
The men's triathlon had been scheduled to take place on Tuesday but was postponed until later on Wednesday after the river failed water quality tests.
The women began their race at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT), just as overnight rain was easing.
The races going ahead will be a relief for teams and athletes, as well as for Paris authorities who have promised residents a swimmable Seine as a long-term legacy of the Games, with the triathlon a very public test.
"It is with great joy that we received this news," Benjamin Maze, technical director for France's triathlon federation, told Reuters. "Now that we know we will race, we can mentally switch fully into competition mode."
Wednesday's races were given the green light despite rain overnight.
Organisers make the call based on analysis of river samples taken the previous day at 5 a.m. and after discussions with experts on weather, according to Paris 2024.
Showers started up again around 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday, making racing conditions more difficult for the bike stage which features some sharp turns and a quarter of the course on cobbled roads.
The triathlon, conceived as a central showpiece of the Paris Olympics, starts and finishes at the Alexandre III bridge and takes athletes along a section of the Champs-Elysees and past monuments including the Musee d'Orsay.
Fifty-five women representing 34 countries kicked off the contest at 8 a.m., with France's Cassandre Beaugrand and Britain's Beth Potter, two of the top contenders for gold, diving into the river side by side from a floating pontoon next to the bridge.
The men's event will take place at 10:45 a.m., immediately after the women's race.
"The results of the latest water analyses, received at 3.20 a.m., have been assessed as compliant by World Triathlon allowing for the triathlon competitions to take place," Paris 2024 and World Triathlon said in a statement.
'PUPPET SHOW'
Paris has spent 1.4 billion euros ($1.52 billion) of public money on wastewater infrastructure to contain sewage and minimise spillage into the river, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip earlier this month in a bid to convince doubters that the water will not make them ill.
The decision to postpone the men's race at the last minute on Tuesday had triggered anger among some athletes.
"If the priority was the health of the athletes this event would have been moved to another location a long time ago," Belgium's Marten Van Riel wrote on World Triathlon's Instagram page.
"We are just puppets in a puppet show."
The gamble that the river would be clean enough for the triathlon was never guaranteed to pay off as water quality varies widely day-to-day, with rainfall causing concentrations of infection-causing bacteria like E. coli to rise.
($1 = 0.9240 euros)
(Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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