Olympics-British Triathlon confident France will deliver safe Seine for Games

FILE PHOTO: Debris and waste are pictured in the Seine River as the level of river has exceeded the 4-meter mark in Paris, France, March 11, 2024. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

By Manuel Ausloos and Julien Pretot

PARIS (Reuters) – British Triathlon has a been-there, done-that attitude when it comes to water quality issues in the leadup to big competitions and trusts French authorities to deliver a safe Olympics amid concerns about pollution levels in the River Seine.

The triathlon and open-water swimming competitions at the Paris Olympics take place in the Seine and Games organisers have come under fire for refusing to organise a plan B if heavy rain makes the river, which relies on a newly built storage basin to help reduce the risks of pollution, unsuitable for swimming.

FILE PHOTO: Debris and waste are pictured in the Seine River as the level of river has exceeded the 4-meter mark in Paris, France, March 11, 2024. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

Rather than an alternative location, organisers have contingency days for the open-water swimming and triathlon events, allowing them to reshuffle the schedule if necessary.

“Every single Olympic Games, Paralympic Games we’ve been to, there is usually something environmentally and usually water-related that we’re dealing with,” Mike Cavendish, director performance at British Triathlon, told Reuters.

“So, in Tokyo, it was all about the heat of the water. There were water quality issues in Rio. So this isn’t new for us. And everywhere we go outside of the Olympic and Paralympic Games again, we are almost always dealing with something in the natural world that means that, environmentally, we’ve got some challenges.

FILE PHOTO: Debris and waste are pictured in the Seine River as the level of river has exceeded the 4-meter mark in Paris, France, March 11, 2024. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

“But we are perfectly comfortable that as far as we’re concerned, the authorities have done about as good a job, I think, as they possibly could have done to this point. And we’ll be ready to go there, regardless of whether it ends up being a duathlon or a triathlon, and what the water quality might be.”

Earlier this year, the Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to “protect and showcase the importance of lakes, rivers, the ocean, waves, and coastlines”, said that the Seine was not suitable for bathing.

The independent tests they ran, however, were conducted outside the summer – the period when the river is supposed to be batheable at the 2024 Paris Games and next year for the general public.

PARIS EXAMPLE

Surfrider would like access to the river banks to run more tests during the Olympics.

“We ask the authorities to continue to give access to the riverbanks, to be able to continue to collect samples,” Lucie Segalas, the Surfrider Foundation’s Sports and Environment project manager, told Reuters.

Paris’s deputy mayor for sports Pierre Rabadan said this will not possible for security reasons.

“There are no sampling access points that will be put in place for people who would want to take independent samples (of the Seine water) because firstly, they (tests done by Paris authorities) are done within a very specific framework, so that they can meet the bathing quality requirements,” Rabadan told Reuters.

“But all this is done completely independently (by laboratories hired by Paris authorities), so there are no issues on this subject. As for the access to the competition sites, since questions have been asked, this will obviously not be possible for security reasons.

“I understand that people have questions. But what must be made clear is that we are not playing with the health of athletes or people. And we ourselves respond to scientific protocols and European regulations on swimming.”

Cavendish believes Paris has been doing everything possible to deliver a safe Games and that its efforts should serve as an example for other big cities.

“Paris doing what they’re doing and trying to make the Seine a safe competitive arena, but also a safe bathing area, should be lauded,” he said.

“And I think unless more countries and more cities try and do this, and they might not get it 100% right, and it might not work. But unless more places do this, then we aren’t going to be in a position where we’ve got more clean water for the general public like you and I.”

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)