When the Ironman 70.3 class of triathlon, i.e. the half-distance World Championships, was held in Lahti last August, Urheilu interviewed the big star of the event in advance.
Norwegian Olympic champion and ME man Kristian Blummenfeltnow 30, has conquered everything possible in his sport and crushed ghostly boundaries.
Blummenfelt, who dominates all forms of competition from short Olympic distances to full-length triathlon bursts, praised as the fittest man in the world, was coming to Lahti with victory in mind, but things turned out differently.
The completely exhausted Bergen native came to the finish line in 37th place, about half an hour behind his own record level.
The energy tanks were completely empty, and the reason was the same one that made the athletes very hesitant to complete the swimming part of their sport in the Seine river that bisects Paris: the polluted water.
Due to its dirtiness, swimming has been banned in the Seine for about a century.
Intestinal problems from Singapore
– Before Lahti, I had competed in Singapore, where the contaminated water caused me an intestinal infection. Because of that, my energy tanks were completely empty in Lahti and frankly I don’t understand how I even made it to the finish line, the athlete who is one of the pre-favorites in Paris told Urheilu on Sunday in the Olympic Village – specifically on the banks of the Seine.
– Water quality is often discussed in connection with triathlon, and the case in Singapore was no great exception. A large part of the other competitors also got sick.
At the interview site, a pink sign was attached to the fence separating the river from the competition village, which stated that swimming was prohibited. Which therefore applies to everyone except Olympic-level triathletes and open water swimmers.
The sight made the Norwegian laugh, who on Sunday should have plunged into Seine’s embrace as part of an official swimming practice.
The exercise was canceled when the measurements of the health authorities still showed dangerous concentrations of E.coli and enterococci bacteria in the water, specifically predisposing to intestinal problems.
They will try again on Monday, and on Tuesday they should already compete, but Blummenfelt – for whom swimming is a strong sport in triathlon – admitted that he was skeptical.
– At the Olympic level, you should know and not guess at this stage. If there’s swimming on Tuesday, I’ll swim with you.
Worst case scenario
In the worst case scenario, the triathlon would be shortened to a duathlon, i.e. a combination of cycling and running.
– It would be a disaster for the sport, says the Norwegian, who trains about 1,300 hours a year, and who, by winning in Paris, would become the second triathlete to win two Olympic gold medals, his idol, Britain’s Alistair Brownlee alongside.
– I agree with Kristian. It would be a disaster for the sport in such an event, said Blummenfelt’s long-time coach Olav Aleksander Bu.
The coach thinks that this will be Blummenfelt’s last Olympic Games as a triathlete, but not necessarily the last Olympic Games.
– He might try for the Los Angeles Games as a cyclist.
Open water swimming medals should also be competed for in the Seine. That sport is easier to move than the triathlon that starts and ends in front of the world-famous Invalidikirki, during which e.g. cycling and running in abundance in the scenery of the Champs-Elysee.
It’s about a great tourist advertisement for Paris and a masterpiece of TV production and security arrangements, which can no longer be moved to another location with such notice.
A risky game in the first place
The choice of Seine as the platform for the Olympic triathlon’s 500-meter swim and 10-kilometer open water swim was known by the organizers to be a risky game from the start. It is now threatening to become visible, even though the costs of cleaning the river are already around one and a half billion euros.
A few years ago, Blummenfelt, a top professional, met an avid enthusiast of the sport at a triathlon competition held in Britain: to Alexander Stubbwhich at that time operated outside of daily politics.
Stubb is a big fan of the endurance miracle, and these days we keep in touch regularly, mostly by text. In between, Blummenfelt noticed that the people of Finland had voted for his friend as president.
– It is admirable how he is able to fit regular and goal-oriented training into his current schedule, Blummenfelt states.
He would have gladly presented to Urheilu the messages of encouragement he received from Stubb in Paris, if he hadn’t forgotten his phone in his room in the race village.
– I hope that I can present him with the gold medal after crossing the finish line on Tuesday, he laughed.
This will not happen, even if the first place goes to the fjords, because Stubb has to leave Paris already on Monday because of his presidential duties.
Stubb recently took part in a 24-kilometer upstream river swim in Kuusamo.
– Very impressive swimming performance, upstream or not, Blummenfelt praises his authoritative friend.