Paris 2024 Olympics: “no plan B” for the swimming events in the Seine, confirms the prefect

Concerns around the Seine. EPA – TERESA SUAREZ

The only alternative in the event of pollution of the Seine for the events of the Olympic Games (July 26 – August 11) which must be held there is to "stagger" of a few days, the regional prefect reaffirmed on Wednesday, according to which "there is no plan B".

"The Cojo (organizing committee) has always said that there was no plan B as to the location of these events' quot;, said Marc Guillaume, the prefect of the Ile-de-France region, to the press.

At the beginning of August 2023, the dress rehearsal for the open water swimming event had turned into a nightmare for the organizers, forced to cancel it due to quality thresholds of the swimming event. #39;river water clearly exceeded, after a very intense rainy episode.

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In a recent interview with AFP, the reigning Olympic champion in the specialty, the Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha, did not hide her "concern&quot ;. "But (the organizers) insist on wanting the events to take place there", a she lamented, asking for a plan B in case it was not possible to swim in the Seine. p>

Trials threatened

"We are working to ensure that the tests are held in the Seine", replied Marc Guillaume. "If the water samples which will be taken in the Seine show that we have difficulties, we must postpone the tests (…) with the days contingency" planned, i.e. "one or two days", he developed. Scheduled between the Alexandre-III bridge and the Eiffel Tower, the triathlon events (July 30 and 31, August 5) and open water swimming, now called marathon swimming (August 8 and 9), remain threatened by heavy precipitation which would degrade the water of the Seine, via the discharge of wastewater mixed with rainwater into its bed.

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For a decade, the State and local authorities in Ile-de-France have invested 1.4 billion euros in work intended to make the river swimmable for the general public, on defined and secure sites, the day after the Olympics.

A storage basin capable of holding nearly 50,000 m3, the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools, is nearing completion near the railway station. Austerlitz, among other works intended to limit and/or clean wastewater discharges. "Statistically there are still a few rains in the year for which these storage capacities would not be enough", recognized Marc Guillaume, for whom "l&# 39;objective of decontaminating 75% will be met".