Weather permitting, the river will be the star of the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26 and will then host the triathlon and the open-water swimming events.
THE Seine has been clean enough to swim in for most of the past 12 days, Paris City Hall said on Friday, just weeks ahead of the Olympic Games.
The quality of the water met the required standard for “11 days or 10 days” of the past 12, city official Pierre Rabadan told broadcaster RFI.
Weather permitting, the river will be the star of the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26 and will then host the triathlon and the open-water swimming events.
The Paris region has seen an unseasonably heavy amount of rain over recent weeks, which has raised the Seine’s pollution levels as untreated sewage is washed into the river.
“We hope the weather will get a little better, but we are not worried about the possibility of holding the competitions,” Rabadan said.
“They will take place.” He added, however, that there may have to be “modifications”, without giving details.
🏊♀️🇫🇷 Le plongeon de la ministre des Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, dans la Seine, légèrement emportée par les courants. pic.twitter.com/bAWWTqx268
— AlertesInfos (@AlertesInfos) July 13, 2024
Weather in Paris is forecast to be mostly dry over the final 14 days before the start of the Games. On July 4, it had already been reported that E coli levels at the Olympics swimming spot in central Paris had fallen to within acceptable limits for four days.
But the previous week, levels of E coli – a bacterial strain indicating the presence of faecal matter – had been above the upper limits used by sports federations every day at the Alexandre III Bridge location in central Paris, which is set to be the jumping off point for the swimming.
At one point, E coli levels were 10 times the upper limit of 1,000 colony-forming units per 100ml (cfu/ml), with heavy rain over the previous two months prompting fears for the Olympic events.
The Seine is set to be used for the swimming leg of the triathlon on July 30-31 and August 5, as well as the open-water swimming on August 8-9.
French authorities have spent €1.4 billion over the last decade trying to clean up the river by improving the Paris sewerage system, as well as building new water treatment and storage facilities.
AFP
