2023-08-02 14:59:42
The open water swimming event scheduled for this weekend is subject to the whims of the Parisian weather. The precipitation forecast for the next few days could pollute the river and prevent the competition from being held.
Will swimmers be able to crawl safely in the Seine? For now it’s hard to say. The open water swimming event scheduled for this weekend is subject to the whims of the Parisian weather. The rainfall forecast for the next few days could indeed pollute the river and prevent the competition from being held. Last Thursday, the prefecture of the Ile-de-France region, on the basis of bacteriological analyzes of June and July, authorized “in principle” the open water swimming events which are to be held on Saturday and Sunday between the Pont Alexandre III and the Pont de l’Alma, right in the center of Paris. The prefecture has also authorized the triathlon events from August 17 to 20.
It is an open water swimming World Cup event organized under the aegis of World Aquatics, the international swimming federation, which was to take place in the Seine. This competition is actually a “test” for the organizers of the Paris Olympics, a way to run the Olympic event next year.
The swimmers on Saturday and the swimmers on Sunday plan to crawl 10 kilometers, making several 1.6 km loops between the two famous bridges, the Eiffel Tower in the background, organizers and authorities with their eyes fixed on the quality of the water. It will also be a premise for future swimming promised for 2025 by the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, on three sites while swimming has been prohibited there since 1923.
Waiting for weather improvement
But in the face of bad weather, the holding of the weekend event is not guaranteed. “If there is no improvement in the weather, it will be complicated,” conceded one of the authorities concerned on Tuesday. Between Eaux de Paris, the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, the town hall of Paris and the prefecture of Ile-de-France… many of them are the nose on the results of analyzes looking in particular for the famous bacterium Escherichia coli and enterococci. However, the intense rains of the last few days have brought wastewater back into the river and caused the sewers to overflow.
After several days of precipitation in Ile-de-France, and more rain expected on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, doubts are emerging around the results of the analyzes. “There is a risk”, abounds one of the authorities concerned while waiting for the latest results of analyzes carried out by Eaux de Paris.
On July 9, the daily analyses, on the basis of the European regulations in force, had given “excellent results”, had delighted the town hall of Paris. But Pierre Rabadan, deputy for sport and the Seine at the town hall, had been forced to recognize that “if it rains in torrents for a week, it will be complicated”.
A first meeting must be held in the night from Thursday to Friday to authorize, on the basis of the last water sample taken, first training Friday morning at 07:30, and likewise the following nights. Each time, if the analyzes of the sample taken 24 hours before are not good, it will be necessary to cancel. For the Olympic Games in 2024, the organizers have long planned to be able to postpone the events by two or three days, in the event of storms and heavy rain.
Since 2016, the State and local authorities have spent approximately 1.4 billion euros on all projects intended to make the Seine bathable (correction of evacuations of houses and barges, modernization of purification plants, construction of basins storage facilities and sanitation stations, etc.) and thus prevent rainwater from carrying waste water into the river.
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