Olympics Triathlon Goes Ahead In River Seine After E.Coli Cliffhanger

Olympic triathlon tournaments got underway in Paris on Thursday morning, after levels of bacteria in the River Seine fell to low enough levels for the swimming leg of the contest to take place in its waters.

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Doubts over whether the tournaments would go ahead in the Seine as planned had become one of the hot news stories of this Olympics.

The women’s race kicked off at 8 a.m. local time after the Seine’s water were given the all-clear in the early hours of the morning.

As female Triathlon athletes hit the water off the Pont Alexandre III bridge in central Paris, it marked the culmination of an ambitious $1.5B (€1.4B) plan by the city of Paris to clean up the river’s notoriously polluted waters so that it could host key endurance swimming events during the Olympics.

Paris City Mayor Anne Hidalgo hopes the scheme will have the lasting legacy of allowing Parisians to swim in the Seine, which has been off-limits for bathers for the best part of a century.

In a bid to prove that the waters had been cleaned up to a sufficient level for the Olympic contests to take place, Hidalgo even took a dip herself in the lead-up to the 2024 games.

Unseasonably heavy rains on the night of the opening ceremony on Friday (July 26) which continued into Saturday had pushed bacteria, including e.coli, above unacceptable levels. This led to the men’s race being postponed on Tuesday.

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Storm warnings over Paris for late Tuesday, early Wednesday gave rise to fears that the bacteria levels would rise further and that the Triathlon would be reduced to a Duathlon instead.

However, in spite of heavy rain in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the World Triathlon and International Olympics Committee announced at 4.00 a.m. local time that the women’s race would go ahead, followed by the mens rescheduled 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,” they said in a statement.

The men’s race is now due to take place at 10.45 a.m. local time.

The Paris triathlon encompasses a 1,500m swim with and against the current of the river, followed by 40km bike and 10km running legs around central Paris.

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