Pollution had threatened organizers’ quest to make the river safe for swimming. After days of setbacks, the triathlons started Wednesday.
Paris 2024 Olympics - Triathlon - Women's Individual - Paris, France - July 31, 2024. thorpeAlberte Kjaer Pedersen of Denmark in action. REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
PARIS – At 20 seconds past 8 a.m. on Wednesday, 55 female triathletes plunged into the Seine just below the Pont Alexandere III. The splash they made could barely be heard over the cheers of fans gathered in bleachers along the riverbank and on the streets several feet away. But it was a massive leap for a city that longed to use the Paris Olympics to make the river safe for swimming again.
For nearly 100 years, the Seine has been considered unsafe for swimming because of massive pollution, and political leaders from Paris and surrounding municipalities have spent 1.4 billion euros on a sprawling cleanup project that was supposed to be finished in time for Olympic triathlons and marathon swimming events.
But after Paris 2024 and city leaders boasted about weeks of low E. Coli readings in the river, a weekend rainstorm pushed those numbers to unsafe levels, leading to the cancellation of two river training sessions and the postponement of Tuesday’s men’s triathlon. The setbacks fueled worries that Paris’s grand ambitions for the Seine were unrealistic, and that the triathlons might have to be turned into run-bike duathlons.
The mood around the bridge, one of Paris’s most spectacular, with towering gold statues of winged horses on each end, was festive as the start approached. Fans gathered on either side of the river, some filling bleachers left over from last Friday’s opening ceremony. Not long before 8 a.m, the rain stopped and the clouds above the nearby Eiffel Tower broke apart, revealing hints of blue sky.
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