The Seine is finally “suitable for bathing”, the organizing committee keeps its fingers crossed – Libération

For the first time since the beginning of June, the river waters have been declared fit for swimming. And despite a high flow, the organizing committee assures that the opening ceremony on July 26 can be adapted.

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They have not finished scanning the sky, but it is a first sigh of relief, twenty-two days before the opening of the Paris Olympic Games. According to the results of bacteriological analyses published this Thursday, July 4, the Seine, even very high and very tumultuous, was suitable for swimming for several days in a row at the end of June. This is the first time that this has been the case since the weekly publication of results, at the beginning of June. This is due in particular to the sunny weather of the first days of summer and despite a flow “four to six times” higher “than the usual summer flow”, the town hall and the regional prefecture emphasize in their weekly bulletin.

In the morning, Anne Hidalgo’s deputy in charge of the Olympic Games and the Seine, Pierre Rabadan, had let the cat out of the bag by visiting the Place de la Concorde, where the urban sports events (3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle, skateboarding and breaking) will take place. “The results of the last few days are satisfactory and consistent with swimming,” the former rugby player declared at the microphone by RMC Sport. We knew why it wasn’t, given the heavy rains in May and June. Now, the water quality results are in line with our needs. Obviously, the next few days need to continue in this direction, but I have no worries. We’ll be there for the Games.”

“We will return to the standards”

The Seine is to be the scene of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on Friday 26 July, and three events are to be held there, the triathlon swim, the freestyle marathon and the paratriathlon, at the very beginning of September. Water pollution is a cause for concern, but it is not the only one. Due to heavy, continuous rain in the spring and since the beginning of June, the flow of the river that crosses the capital has been above 300 m³/s for almost the entire month, almost two to three times the summer norm of between 100 and 150 m³/s. It has even sometimes risen above 600. This high flow had also led to the cancellation of one of the rehearsals of the fleet of boats on 24 June, as well as that of the open water swimmers two weeks before.

But according to Thierry Reboul, director of ceremonies at the Paris 2024 organizing committee, the July 26 ceremony can be “adapted” up to 500 m³/s. “We know how to do it identically up to 300 m³/s,” he told AFP on Thursday. What we must avoid is being above 500 m³/s, [car] “The boats are not going at 9 km/h either, but at 12 km/h,” he specifies. As the artistic show, which will take place mainly on the quays, bridges and roofs along the Seine, is synchronized with the river parade, we would have “the whole timing upset.”

Between 300 and 500 cubic meters, there will be “an adaptation”, such as “removing the boats that are the highest”. Because the flow can also be partly correlated with the height of the water, which can become problematic for passing under certain bridges in Paris. Despite this unpleasant weather, “we are quite calm”, assured Thierry Reboul, who received the weather forecast for the next three weeks this Thursday morning, and wants to be reassuring: “We will return to the norms.”