2023-08-20 17:47:49
A third cancellation and here are the organizers of the Paris 2024 Games and their bathing bet in the Seine heckled by controversy. After a near-faultless performance on Thursday and Friday with high-level triathlons, an organization hailed by the athletes and their federations and a spectacle appreciated by the spectators, the Test Event took a turn for the worse, jostled by a deterioration in the quality of the river water.
While women and men had dived without flinching under the Alexandre III bridge during the individual events, the paratriathletes on Saturday and the triathletes engaged in the mixed relay on Sunday competed in a duathlon format (alternating running and cycling). This Sunday, the level of bacteria noted was between 1,300 and 1,400 CFU per 100 ml, against the 1,000 CFU per 100 ml set by World Triathlon.
A fortnight ago, the open water swimming test events had to be canceled. The excessive presence of the Escherichia coli bacterium was then justified by the heavy rains and stormy episodes at the beginning of August. But this weekend, due to the sun, organizers and authorities were unable to use this argument and remained unanswered in the face of these “differences” observed in the analyses.
An “investigation” in progress to understand this degradation
“We have no explanation yet for this deterioration in the quality of the water, admitted Pierre Rababan, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of sport and the Olympics this Sunday. Today, an investigation is underway, there are investigations that will be deepened in the coming days to provide feedback and understand what went wrong, so that we can remedy it. We have work “.
“When today we miss the march it is by little and once again with differences because there are areas where we were very close to good quality, insisted alongside him Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Minister of Sports. . It is extremely encouraging”.
The fact remains that of the eight swimming sessions scheduled for this summer, including reconnaissance and competition phases, only three were able to take place during these test events. A ratio that questions the good performance of the tests in a year.
“The device is not mature”
The organizers hammered throughout the weekend their confidence for 2024, Tony Estanguet in the lead. “We will be ready. The objective was to make the Seine swimmable in 2024, detailed the president of the organizing committee. This test occurs along the way, the device is not mature. There are still major efforts to be made to improve the quality of the water in the Seine”. “We know that this is a very large-scale project, added Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. Considerable progress has been made in the past few months. It is a long process “.
With an overall investment of 1.4 billion euros, the bathability project in the Seine still needs to evolve. Among the devices put forward by the Minister: the fight against “bad connections of individuals”, with the aim of correcting 23,000 within a year. With in addition “the connection to the sewer of all the barges”, “the disinfection and treatment of wastewater discharges” and the commissioning of water retention infrastructures – including the storage basin in construction in Austerlitz – the organizers ensure that they will be able to “deal with all situations in dry weather as in the event of rain”.
For the time being, no plan B, not even that of competing again in a duathlon format, wants to be retained by the organizers of Paris 2024. “From the start, we have remained on the same project, that of organizing the triathlon and paratriathlon here. We will have an additional contingency plan with the possibility of postponing the competition dates by several days if necessary, ”explains the former ceist. There is therefore no question of doing without the postcard view and this “extraordinary landscape” around the Seine. He, like the Minister of Sports, even promised that he would dive into it.
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