French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera went for a swim in the Seine river on Saturday, raising hopes that the river will be clean enough for maritime events during the Olympics, France 24 reported.
Paris City Hall announced Friday that the Seine has been clean enough for swimming for the past 12 days, just weeks before the 2024 Olympic Games. City Hall spokesman Pierre Rabadan told RFI television that water quality met the required standard for “11 or 10 days” of the last 12. In addition, Oudea-Castera went swimming in the Seine on Saturday, raising hopes that the river would be clean enough for the participants.
The quality of the water in the Seine river has been under scrutiny over the past few weeks, particularly by the organisers of the 2024 Olympics, which begin on 26 July, but also by residents and visitors to Paris, as the Seine plays an important symbolic role for the Olympic Games. With her swim, the French sports minister cheered Parisian officials ahead of the big event for Paris and France as a whole.
The Paris region has received unusual rainfall for the season in recent weeks, leading to increased pollution levels in the Seine as untreated sewage flows into the river. Last week, E. coli levels exceeded the upper limits used by sports federations every day on the Alexandre III bridge in central Paris, which is due to be the starting point of the swim.
On July 4, City Hall had already reported that E.coli bacteria levels at the Olympic swimming complex in central Paris had been within the limits for four days. A City Hall spokesman said the weather in Paris would be predominantly dry for the last 14 days before the Games, but that “modifications” would be in place if necessary, without specifying which ones.
The Seine river is expected to host the swimming leg of the triathlon on 30-31 July and 5 August, as well as the open water swim on 8-9 August.
