Paris considers ditching filthy Seine for Olympic swimmers

Organisers of the Paris Olympics are considering ditching the river Seine for the main swimming event if it is still filthy in a few weeks.

Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris Olympics committee, said the marathon swim will be moved to the lake in Vaires-sur-Marne outside the capital if efforts to clean it have not been enough by the time the games begin.

His comments are consistent with his position in April when said he was “confident that it will be possible to use the Seine”, but there could be “a final decision where we could not swim”, a situation he said “we want to avoid, of course”.

Getting the Seine ready for the swimming leg of the triathlon and marathon has been a big and expensive job, costing more than €1 billion.

The river has been off limits to bathers since the early 1920s due to high levels of bacteria, and last summer a sewer problem led to the cancellation of a pre-Olympics swimming event.

As early as May, tests revealed levels of e-coli and bacteria were higher than the acceptable limits for sports.

However, Thursday showed some encouraging results, with the quality of the Seine having improved, according to data.

Data published by the city and regional authorities showed the concentrations of enterococci and E.coli bacteria were below legal thresholds six out of nine days between June 24 and July 2.

But much still depends on the rainfall and water temperature between now and the running of the events between July 26 and Aug. 1.

With decent weather this week in Paris, the quality of the water is expected to remain good, though organisers have made sure of a backup option in Vaires-sur-Marne if the situation deteriorates.

“The competition site, already used for rowing and canoeing events, has all the necessary features to host these events if required,” a Paris 2024 spokesman told Reuters.

“The rules of World Triathlon allow, as a final resort, for the competition to be held in a duathlon format. On the other hand, in order to guarantee that marathon swimming events could still be held if all other contingency plans were exhausted, we have initiated a fallback plan based on the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium,” he added.