On July 26, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games will be held on the Seine, which will also be the scene of swimming and triathlon events. While the Olympics begin in exactly one month, uncertainty still hangs over the river. The water is still too polluted, the start too high and swimming impossible. But the organizers want to be confident.
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The light is still not green for the Seine. On June 21, the city of Paris’ bulletin on water quality was clear: according to tests carried out from June 10 to 16, the river is still unsuitable for swimming, the level of concentration of fecal bacteria E. Coli being always above the maximum threshold set by the International Triathlon and Swimming Federations.
And that’s not all. The rehearsal for the opening ceremony Olympic Games 2024 – a boat parade over six kilometers, a new format and very different from the usual parade in the Olympic stadium –, scheduled for June 24, had to be canceled due to high flow of the river. A consequence of the gloomy weather in June, with rain infiltrating the sewers then flowing into the Seine.
This sows a little more trouble on the hoped-for plans for the Games, between the opening ceremony therefore, as well as the triathlon, swimming and paratriathlon events. Between the required standards and the water flow which could compromise the precise execution of the opening ceremony, the challenge of making the Seine swimmable remains immense, while a prefectural decree has prohibited dipping a head in it since 1923.
Read alsoOlympic Games 2024: rehearsal of the opening ceremony on the Seine with around fifty boats
“No plan B”
However, the authorities are still reassuring, after having already invested 1.4 billion euros to clean up the river and its main tributary, the Marne. A huge water storage basin has been operating since May near the Seine, in Austerlitz, to absorb the overflow from the sewers and clean up the river. The regional prefect, Marc Guillaume, said to himself “ confident » on the holding of the tests at the end of July-beginning of August.
Same story from the organizers. On June 25, during a visit to the Olympic site of the Champs de Mars – Eiffel Tower, Anne Descamps spoke to Ana Maria Ospina Maya for RFI. “ We have every confidence in our ability to organize magnificent events in the Seine this summer », Assured the communications director of the Organizing Committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, recalling that “ extremely gray and rainy weather » in recent days has greatly impacted water quality. The return of the sun and summer weather should change the situation. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, declared to the daily West France be ” very confident » on the arrival of favorable weather.
For Anne Descamps, “ plan A » remains the Seine. Tests will be held regularly in the coming month, she confides, certain that all the work carried out so far “ will pay on D-day “. There is no no plan B, since we have every confidence in plan A “, she assures.