Seine still polluted, swimming training cancelled. The organizers: “It is swimmable and the races can take place”

Training sessions in the Seine scheduled for today ahead of the open water swimming competitions have been cancelled due to water that organisers have described as “unsuitable for swimming”.
This is the fifth training session cancelled since the start of the Games, with the first four involving triathlon, a discipline whose men’s competition, again due to pollution, was then postponed by a day. There is now uncertainty about whether the open water swimming events will be held on the scheduled dates.

“The Seine is safe to swim in and the competitions can take place.” Anne Descamps, spokesperson for the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, is trying to reassure everyone after today’s training, in preparation for the long-distance swimming competitions, was also cancelled. “On August 5, the concentrations of E. coli were very low in the three points where the samples were taken,” she explained during the daily IOC briefing. “The analyses were carried out correctly and it is safe to swim. Samples were taken at 6:30 this morning, the results of the analyses arrived at 10:30 and the values ​​for enterococci are between 242 and 378, therefore within the margins established for bathing.” Descamps, citing a World Triathlon report, stresses that “the concentrations of escherichia coli and enterococci are very low and therefore it is safe to swim. There is only one value above the threshold but it is related to a point where a sample was taken very far from the race site”. The International Swimming and Triathlon Federations, she reiterates, “make decisions on whether it is safe to swim together based on the concentration of e-coli. Three tests were carried out which gave excellent results, then there are other criteria. We based ourselves on the results of laboratory tests relating to samples taken 24 hours before the race, these are decisions that are taken with due caution and there will be tests for the athletes to let them know the conditions of the Seine provided that the weather conditions are excellent”.