If the Seine remains too dirty, swimming at the Olympic triathlon in Paris could be cancelled. The national coach is calling for a “Plan B” – IOC President Bach has an idea for the open water competitions.
The river water in the French capital has failed quality tests several times, most recently on Friday (June 28, 2024). If this continues and the water level remains high, this will have consequences for the opening ceremony, the open water swimming and, above all, the triathlon.
“There is a rule in triathlon that you do a duathlon without swimming,” Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told WDR on Tuesday (July 3, 2024). “We have to accept that, although there are other ideas about how to do it, but that is the rule that the athletes have adapted to.”
The triathlon test competitions in August 2023 were already held as duathlons due to the poor water quality. The program included two running distances of 0.9 km and 1.8 km as well as 5.8 km of cycling.
Open water swimming possibly in the rowing pool
There are other options in open water swimming, said Bach on the sidelines of the CHIO in Aachen. “The rowing pool could also be considered here.”
Bach was confident, however, that the water quality of the Seine would improve. “The problem was the rain, because then the basins could no longer hold and process the water. Now it was dry. If it stays dry this week, we can perhaps expect good news on Friday. But there are still two weeks to go.”
National coach Berkhahn points to great efforts in training
Despite the current problems with the water quality, national swimming coach Bernd Berkhahn hopes that the Olympic open water races will be held in the Seine in Paris. “The race in the Seine is a great challenge in terms of its demands. A lot of effort has to be put into training to prepare for this. I hope this effort was not in vain,” said Berkhahn in an interview published by the German Swimming Association. “Of course, I would also like to experience the race in this atmosphere.”
Long-distance national coach Berkhahn trains open water Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock and World Championship bronze medalist Oliver Klemet, among others. Recently, the water in the river in Paris was too dirty to hold competitions there. The level of pathogens was too high. In addition, according to Berkhahn, the current is currently too strong. “As things stand, it would not be possible to hold the event in the Seine because the current speed is two meters per second. You can get downstream quickly, but you can’t get back,” said Berkhahn.
In case the conditions do not improve in time, Berkhahn would like to see an alternative for the open water competitions. “The organizers should definitely have a plan B,” he said – that could be the rowing course. The ten-kilometer races are planned for August 8 (women) and August 9 (men).
Expensive measures for better water quality
In the greater Paris area, around 1.4 billion euros were invested in sewage treatment plants and the sewage system in preparation for the Games in order to enable the prestigious swimming competitions to take place against the backdrop of Paris.
During heavy rainfall in the penultimate week of June, a retention basin costing around 90 million euros was used for the first time. This can prevent the discharge of wastewater into the Seine, which has previously been the case in such weather conditions, during heavy rain.
Nevertheless, the contamination with pathogens is still too high. At higher temperatures and lower water levels, these pathogens are broken down more quickly in the water, the city and region said.
Consequences also possible for the opening ceremony
The current high water level of the river and the resulting increased flow rate are also putting the opening ceremony of the games at risk, as the newspaper “Libération” reported. The plan is actually that the opening of the games will be organized in the heart of the host city rather than in a stadium for the first time in their history.
On July 26, around 160 boats will take the teams with several thousand athletes on a six-kilometer route across the Seine, past the most beautiful sights from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadéro. If the flow rate were to increase, the boats would need 15 minutes less than planned to complete the route, disrupting the schedule calculated down to the second, wrote “Libération”.
