It’s been the dream and promise of Paris mayors for decades, and the nightmare of Olympic organizers: Can the Seine be cleared enough for swimming and to host triathlons and other events?
For the past hundred years, and until a few days ago, the answer seemed to be no.
However, on Wednesday, the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, followed through on her promise to be one of the first to get involved.
Amid cheers and applause, she led a hundred officials, athletes and locals donning swimsuits and taking a dip in the river after a series of tests showed the water was finally safe.
“It’s a dream day… the sun is out,” Hidalgo said after a respectable crawl 100 meters downstream in 20-degree water temperatures.
“It’s sweet and wonderful and the result of a lot of work. I remember at the beginning of 2015, when we started planning for the Olympics, the International Triathlon Federation said why not do the triathlon in the Seine? Athletes can swim in the Seine. Can we say today that they can.
Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, congratulated the city hall and French authorities for ensuring the river is safe for swimming. “Today we confirmed that the Seine is swimmable and that triathlons and marathon swimming events can be held in it,” he said.
“As organizers, we are happy to be able to provide the best conditions for athletes… but beyond that, we can use the Olympics to accelerate the transformation of cities so that people can swim in the Seine.
He added that water pollution could increase if there was heavy rain, so contingency plans were in place to postpone the game for “a few days”.
Swimming in the Seine, which bisects Paris, has been banned since 1923 due to health risks. In 1990, then-conservative President Jacques Chirac promised to make it clean enough to swim in, but failed.
Hidalgo’s historic swim has been postponed twice due to fluctuating pollution levels, just 10 days before the Olympics kick off on July 26, amid concerns that a massive clean-up operation has failed. Works include building a €1.4bn (£1.2bn) storage and treatment tank to contain bacteria-laden rainwater during heavy rains, which opened a month ago and improves the city’s wastewater network.
Until recently, the river failed water quality tests for E. coli, an indicator of fecal matter, and showed levels above the upper limit set by sports federations.
The triathlon will be held on July 30, 31 and August 5, and the swim marathon will be held on August 8 and 9. The Paratriathlon will be held on September 1st and 2nd.
Participants in the open water swim and triathlon will start from the Pont Alexandre III, a 19th-century engineering marvel at the foot of the Champs Elysées, with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
The river water is regularly tested at multiple locations before each event and authorities are confident the water will be clean with 75% of the identified bacterial contamination eliminated.
Paris Olympics organizers say the triathlon will no longer have a swimming component and the marathon swim will be rescheduled if heavy rain during the Games affects pollution levels in rivers.
In another sign of hope, French experts have discovered more than 30 species of fish in the Seine River in Paris, up from just three species in 1970.
After the swim, Hidalgo said making the Seine swimmable would also help cities adapt to the climate crisis and mitigate marine pollution flowing into the river.
