Seine too much of this, Seine not enough of that? Let’s wait until mid-July, plead the organizers – Libération

The torrential spring weather is thwarting preparations for the Paris Games. For the moment, the Seine is not in line for the July 26 river parade and the swimming events. We will really worry ten days before the opening ceremony, explains the Cojo.

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Given how muddy it looks when seen from the bridges of Paris in recent days, one would have sworn that Tony Estanguet had prepared his pun to evoke the Olympic soap opera of recent months: the state of the Seine. We will “see more clearly in mid-July”, less than two weeks before the opening ceremony, the president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee prudently dismissed on Wednesday evening, June 26.

Whether we are talking about cleanliness, water level or speed, the stakes are high since the Seine must be the scene of both the river parade of the Olympic delegations and, a few days later, the freestyle swimming events. Despite massive investments and the implementation of several tools to regulate pollution, the heavy rains of recent weeks are thwarting preparations for the Olympic Games.

“We have not been spared by the weather conditions. It seems to be improving a little, we will see more clearly in mid-July,” Estanguet said on France Inter. “It is one of the things we are monitoring closely. We always knew that the water quality would not be there until July 2024.” “If the heavens are with us, then it will be very beautiful,” added the artistic director of the ceremonies, Thomas Jolly.

In the morning, the prefect of Ile-de-France, Marc Guillaume, had anticipated the new tests expected for Friday to announce that the Seine would not be swimmable at the beginning of July. “We have not had weather conditions, for six months, which are very classic,” he recalled, stressing that the Bathing Plan carried out for almost a decade by the State and the Ile-de-France communities, with 1 .4 billion euros of investment to make the Seine and the Marne swimmable, “is not enough if the weather is autumn or winter”.

The high flow of the Seine, rising to more than 650 m³/second, compared to 100 to 150 in the summer, prevented a rehearsal of the opening ceremony from being held at the start of the week. On Wednesday morning, the flow rate was “more than 480 m³/second”. This high flow “mathematically increases the speed of the boats” planned for the ceremony, which would take “15 minutes less” than planned on a course which will be played on July 26 to within a few seconds. In June, the usual flow rate in summer is around 100 m³/second. In an interview with Ouest-France on Wednesday, Anne Hidalgo said she was “very confident” about the arrival of favorable weather in time for the Olympics.

This aquatic suspense has been going on since the August 2023 “test events” in the Seine (triathlon and swimming marathon), which had to be largely cancelled due to insufficient water quality. This summer, plan B is to postpone the events by a few days, but not to change the location.