Because of the heavy rains in recent days in the capital, the water quality does not allow swimmers to take the plunge on Saturday. The races are temporarily postponed to Sunday.
First cold shower for the organizers of the Open Water World Cup in Paris. The competition, scheduled for Saturday August 5, has been postponed to Sunday due to “the quality of the water of the Seine, which currently remains below acceptable standards for safeguarding the health of swimmers”said the French Swimming Federation in a press release.
The fault is the heavy rains of recent days in the capital, which have caused too much pollution of the river. Friday morning, training had already been canceled. “The decision was made, in consultation with public health and event organization partners”then indicated the FFN.
The competition is maintained, for now
Initially scheduled for Saturday, the women’s 10 km, consisting of several loops between the Alexandre III bridge and the Alma bridge, will finally take place on Sunday at 7:30 am. The men’s race will be held immediately after, starting at 11:30 a.m. “A new update is expected around 5am on August 6th”, said the FFN in its press release. The body thus reserves the right to condition the holding of the events to the weather conditions.
This event is a “test event”, that is to say a rehearsal for both the swimmers and the organizers of the Paris Olympics, because the event will be identical next summer.
In a joint statement, the organizing committee of the Olympics (Cojop), the town hall of Paris and the prefecture of the Ile-de-France region reacted by recalling that “The sanitation dynamic continues with the completion of the most significant water quality improvement works in the coming months, in particular to deal with these exceptional weather events.”
A modifiable Olympic program for these events
Ile-de-France has been experiencing daily rains, more or less intense, for a week. A disaster scenario for the organizers, because it can degrade the quality of the water in the Seine by bringing wastewater back into it. It rained in Paris “four times more than the average over the last 20 years”noted the prefecture of the Île-de-France region, which wants to be reassuring in speaking of a “temporary degradation of water quality”.
The organizers of the Olympic Games have long planned to be able to postpone the events by two or three days, in the event of thunderstorms and heavy rain. In the meantime, the swimmers have no choice but to take their troubles patiently. The triathletes can invoke the sky for the rains to stop, while their “test event” is to take place from August 17 to 20, with the swimming part carried out in the Seine.