“It’s not just a story of swimming in the Seine, but of the entire rehabilitation of the ecosystem” – Libération

An activist for aquatic ecosystems, the 54-year-old Australian lawyer and businesswoman stopped off in the capital on Thursday, to run along the Seine in the company of the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the Olympics and the Seine .

Running 200 marathons all over the world between 2022 and 2023 to attract attention and defend aquatic ecosystems will not have been enough for him. Eco-friendly Australian marathon runner Mina Guli has set herself a new challenge: to run twenty rivers on seven continents, for the purposes of her “World River Run” campaign. The goal is always the same: to raise public awareness about water protection, in collaboration with the NGO Thirst Foundation. A crazy new project, started in France at the beginning of June, on the Langres plateau, in Côte-d’Or, where the Seine has its source.

Five weeks before the Olympics, Paris was inevitably on the route of this 53-year-old businesswoman and lawyer. Thursday June 20, just before very bad news accumulated for the Olympic events in the Seine (triathlon and freestyle swimming), Mina Guli shared her race for three kilometers with Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Sports , the Olympics and… the Seine. A small communications operation, which allowed the teammates of the day to multiply the photos on the Pont des Arts in the heart of the capital.

Swans and global example

During her global journey, she describes seeing “rivers so dry that I could walk under bridges, so polluted that the banks were piles of textiles and plastics.” Once she arrived under the columns of the Institut de France, barely out of breath, the marathon runner was delighted with the current state of the Seine, even if it meant being overly positive. “The goal of this race is to celebrate the restoration of this incredible river ecosystem, but also to show it to the world, in order to inspire other cities to carry out similar projects,” she said. White cap aimed and not too exhausted either, Pierre Rabadan says no less: having cleaned the Seine, “it is something major for the future of our children and even for our old age”.

Mina Guli, whose awareness projects are partly funded by the United Nations, marveled at the river’s aquatic fault: “You know, just a few decades ago, this river was declared functionally dead. Yesterday, while I was running, I saw a fish the length of my arm. I saw swans and ducks nesting on the banks. One of the swans was so cute, it had little ducklings on its back.” Or more likely baby swans.

“It’s not communication, it’s science”

But Mina Guli still maintains some polite reservations: “It’s not just a story about swimming in the river. It is a story of rehabilitation and entire restoration of the ecosystem. We cannot judge the quality of the river just based on our ability to swim in it or not, many other aspects come into play.” Before adding: “I have already swum in this river, and I assure you that a good part of its health cannot be summed up in knowing whether it is swimmable or not.” Understand, the efforts made are encouraging, but work is still needed to completely rehabilitate the Seine.

A pragmatic speech taken up by Pierre Rabadan: “Swimming in the Seine is not just a question of positive communication. There is a scientific process, European regulations that we apply, tests that are carried out every day.” And, regarding the Olympics which open on July 26, these tests have not yet gone green. On Friday, the Ile-de-France prefecture communicated that the level of the river was still too polluted to consider Olympic events there. And in the evening, Paris 2024 canceled the dress rehearsal for the opening ceremony on the Seine due to excessive flow, due to the torrential rains of recent days. To see beyond this summer’s Olympic obstacle, Guli and Rabadan arranged to meet after the Olympics, to visit an exhibition on the Seine. In the literal sense, since it will be held at the floating art center at the Quai de la Photo.