Poor water quality in the Seine river in Paris, which led to the cancellation of a test run for the 2024 Olympics on Saturday and Sunday, was due to a “malfunctioning gate”.
The explanation was given this Tuesday by the city council of the French capital, confirming a news item advanced by the newspaper Canard Enchaîné: “at this point, the privileged hypothesis is that of a malfunction of a lock in the sewerage network, at the height of the Tolbiac bridge “, says the municipality.
“Investigations continue to understand the succession of events and determine the measures that must be taken to guarantee the perfect quality of the water for the tests to be carried out in 2024,” continues the Parisian city council. “It is unfortunate, but it is a situation that we will better evaluate in the future,” the deputy counselor for the Olympic Games and Sports, Pierre Rabadan, told Agence France Presse.
In the Seine, values above the limit for the Escherichia Coli (E.coli) bacteria were found, which caused for the third time the non-performance of a test-event, now the swimming segment of the triathlon, after the suspension. of competitions in open water, three weeks ago, then due to rain and storms.
The possibility of heavy rain in Paris 2024 is being taken seriously and various works are underway to minimize these risks.
There is still no ‘plan B’ for swimming anywhere else, save the Seine, in the triathlon and in the open water of the Olympics.
According to French plans, there could be up to 2,025 baths in the Parisian river, more than 100 years after bathing in the Seine was banned (in 1923).
Source: TSF
