Seine Or In-Seine? Paris Boss Prays For Rain, Rain, Go Away … Or Olympic Marathon May Be Flushed Away In Tide Of Pollution
Heavy rain could wash dangerous levels of pollution into the River Seine and flush the open water marathon down the plughole altogether at the Paris 2024 Olympics this August, according to the head of the organising committee for the Games.
The clean up in the River Seine to ensure clean waters and a return to holding Olympic competitions there for the first time since the second modern Olympics in 1900 has cost more than a billion euros so far.
Last weekend, French water charity Surfrider Foundation sounded the alarm about recent levels of pollution in the Seine. It said it had analysed six months of tests undertaken by a laboratory and had concluded that the river water was potentially dangerous.
In an open letter, the Biarritz-based charity said it “wanted to share with stakeholders its rising concerns about the quality of the Seine but also the risks faced by athletes moving in contaminated water.”
Lessons on the same issues, including the risk posed by heavy rainfall, and the ensuing clean-up in Copenhagen Harbour in Denmark, come with a rider: it took nine years to tackle the problem. Paris has a few months to go before the world tunes in…
The plan to place the Seine at the heart of Paris 2024 was described by The Washington Post as “bold, audacious … and risky”.
Sustainability is just one of the items on a budget fit to burst its banks: with terrorist threats related to the Gaza conflict already made against sports events and venues in Europe, the €350 million security bill for Paris 2024 is set to rise further and sent the overall Games budget beyond its €4.4 billion estimated overall bill.
The thrilling prospect of having the Opening and Closing ceremonies held along the Seine, with athletes “parading” in barges past hoardes of well-wishers has made security logistics an even bigger headache than a contained stadium event.
The pollution issues in The Seine are not new, of course, pollution having forced cancellation of the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup in Paris last August.
Now, Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, has delivered a critical update with his warning that triathlon may become a duathlon is inclement weather wipes out the prospect of a river swim, while the marathon swim is in even bigger thrall to the heavens because it is scheduled in the second week of action, with less room for re-scheduling.
Speaking at a SportAccord event in Birmingham, Estanguet, a former slalom canoeist and a three-time Olympic champion in C1, in 2000, 2004 and 2012 for France, said that the potential threat of E. coli bacteria in the Seine was “one of the bigger challenges” for the Games.
“When we decided to have this competition in the Seine we knew it will be a big challenge but with the authorities, there is a big programme of investment and, when we talk about legacy, this project is fantastic. And we are still confident that the triathlon will be based in the Seine because we have contingency plans.
“We can postpone for rainy conditions. Because it’s programmed at the beginning of the Games, we can wait for better conditions. So we are confident that it will be possible to use the Seine. We change the date and postpone from one day to three days until it’s OK,” he said, adding that there is no alternative location or plan other than re-scheduling within the dates of the Games:
“And there is a final decision where we could not swim — it’s part of the rules of the international federation. It’s what we want to avoid, of course. But there’s a risk. There’s always a risk. I was an athlete. I attended World Championships that were postponed because of floods. When you are in a sport where you rely on the natural conditions, you have to adapt. It’s part of the flexibility in my sport.”
Tony Estanguet – image: An artists’s impression of the Seine as one of the focal points of the Paris 2024 Olympics Games – courtesy of the official tourist office of Paris, Paris Je T’Aime – https://parisjetaime.com/eng/article/olympic-days-a661
Dates Of Marathon In The Seine Leave No Room For Manoeuvre In A Crisis
After The Opening on July 26, the individual triathlon races are due to take place on July 30 and 31 with the mixed relay on August 5. Estanguet noted that first-week scheduling gave organisers more flexibility to reschedule. Rules of triathlon’s international federation allow for the event to be red used to a duathlon of cycling and running in extremis.
There is no such Plan B potential for the marathon, however, the 10km swimming events scheduled on August 8 and 9 in the Seine with no provisions in place for the event to be moved to other waters, open or, indeed, one of the Paris 2024 indoor pools, where a 10km race of around two hours in duration would require several heats of a somewhat monotonous 200-length race.
That would require impossible seeding decisions just to create an event that would take on the look of a speedy training session with little prospect of entertaining the crowds envisaged for the races in the big River running through the French capital.
On the matter of security for the Opening, Estanguet told his audience in Birmingham that there would be a huge security cordon of 45,000 police in place days out from the spectacle. Typical police numbers for the conclusion to the Tour de France: 3,000.
Estanguet noted: “You know, we started this project at the end of 2015, beginning of 2016, just after the massive attacks we had in France. At that time the authorities decided to defend what is important in France and the fact that it’s not because we have been attacked that we should stop with gathering people, defending liberty and the values important for France.”