The lead-up to the Paris Olympics was filled with excitement among competing athletes and sports fans worldwide. The French government invested $1.5 billion to clean up the Seine River for the triathlon events.
However, as reported by Joe Pompliano in his LinkedIn newsletter, these activities have recently been canceled due to elevated E. coli levels. This issue represents one of the most significant setbacks in Olympic history and a major disaster for the organizers.
The Seine River clean-up was no simple task, given Paris’s age and the difficulty of updating older infrastructure. A project was implemented to collect sewer waste in a giant basin before it could contaminate the river. However, this system proved vulnerable to overflow during rainfall, leading to direct contamination of the Seine.
Initially, the project seemed successful, with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo even swimming in the river to demonstrate confidence in the clean-up efforts. Unfortunately, rain during the opening ceremony caused the river to become contaminated once again.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been testing the water daily, but with consistently poor results and upcoming rains predicted, they are now considering modifying the triathlon to a duathlon, eliminating the swimming portion.
This situation has sparked outrage online, with athletes and fans criticizing the mishandling of the event preparations.
Not a way to make an impression at the Paris Olympics
Fans and athletes alike were looking forward to the Paris Olympics. However, due to the government’s negligence, everyone is forced to endure this difficult moment, causing widespread outrage.
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When World Triathlon shared an Instagram post about the matter, one of Belgium’s biggest triathletes, Marten Van Riel, expressed his dissatisfaction, stating:
“If the priority was the health of the athletes this event would have been moved to another location a long time ago. We are just puppets in a puppetshow.”
He continued, writing:
“Duathlon is no triathlon and changing the day like that in the middle of the night is disrespectful to the years of preparation of the athletes and to all (y)our fans that were going to watch live or on tv. What an appearance for triathlon on the biggest scene!”
Bob Babbitt, a veteran of the sport, recalls another incident in triathlon competitions and compares how the surfing association decided to relocate the event from Paris.
“In the last Olympics somehow a huge boat was in the way and for the first time in my 40 + years in the sport there was a false start. This time around World Triathlon had four years to come up with a Plan B. The leaders of Surfing, which is only in it’s second Olympic Games, made the decision to move to Tahiti to showcase their sport and their athletes in the best light possible.”
He continued, writing:
“World Triathlon decided to put their athletes at risk and pray that a disgusting body of water would somehow clean itself up overnight. I feel awful for these amazing athletes who have spent their lives preparing for these Olympic Games and now have to hope and pray that they actually get to race a triathlon tomorrow!”
British triathlete Max Stapley has also expressed his dissatisfaction with the management.
“Pathetic, 0 respect for athlete welfare and investment. Not being able to hold a triathlon in the country with the most tried and tested venues in the world is inexcusable.”
New Zealand’s Chris Dunn also expressed the same emotion as his fellow triathletes.
“The river has been un-swimmable for 100 years. One more day will fix it [facepalm emoji]”
The World Triathlon will convene with the organizers to determine the fate of the events as soon as possible, with an official statement to follow.
