The Paris Olympic Test Event for open water swimming due to take place this weekend has been postponed.
As with triathlon, the open water racing at the Paris Olympic Games will be taking place in the Seine. To complete the 10km distance, the swimmers with complete six laps of 1666m in the river. This year’s Test Event will double as the fourth stop of the Open Water World Cup just as World Triathlon’s Test Event has been integrated into the WTCS.
However, the water quality in the Seine has dropped after substantial rainfall. Indeed, the rainfall has been noted as the heaviest in Paris for two decades.
World Aquatics and the French Swimming Federation took the decision to cancel a training session on Friday morning while the women’s 10km race that was originally scheduled for Saturday has been provisionally moved to Sunday. The men’s race is currently due to take place on its planned slot on Sunday.
World Aquatics announced that an update on the water quality will be released on Sunday morning before the women’s 10km.
The postponement may raise alarm bells for World Triathlon as the Olympic Test Event for its athletes is less than two weeks away.
Water quality is a topical issue at the moment after the issues raised following WTCS Sunderland. A high number of athletes fell sick after the event. Soon after, it emerged that the water quality may have been unacceptably low. In response, World Triathlon issued an email to the athletes in an attempt to contain the issue.
Having failed to take accountability over Sunderland, World Triathlon may soon be placed in an awkward position when it comes to the Test Event.
Over EUR 1.4 billion has been spent on cleaning the Seine. The extraordinary effort has been made to clean a river that was declared dangerous in 1923.
To ensure the water quality is controlled and issues such as pollution are dealt with ahead of next summer’s Olympic Games, Paris will have a major new underground overflow basin development up and running to improve the conditions.
For the time being, athletes in open water swimming and triathlon alike will have to sit tight as they await confirmation as to whether it will be safe to swim in the Seine this month.
