(Paris) The men’s triathlon event at the 2024 Olympic Games has been postponed from Tuesday to Wednesday, the same day as the women’s event, due to water in the Seine still being too polluted, World Triathlon and the organizing committee announced three hours before the start.
The heavy rains that fell on Friday and Saturday in Paris have degraded the quality of the river water, with “values still higher than acceptable limits” in “certain places” along the river at the time of the latest analyses, they announced in a joint press release on Tuesday morning.
The two “familiarization” training sessions in the Seine planned for Sunday and Monday had already been cancelled due to pollution.
The men’s event is rescheduled for Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m. ET), following the women’s event at 8 a.m. (2 a.m. ET), “provided that subsequent tests meet swimmability threshold standards,” they said.
If the quality of the Seine is still insufficient, a new postponement would be possible on Friday, the organizers specified.
“The analyses carried out in the Seine today [lundi] revealed water quality levels that did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to take place,” declared Paris 2024 and the International Triathlon Federation, whose “priority is the health of the athletes.”
“Unfortunately, weather events beyond our control, such as the rains that fell on Paris on July 26 and 27, may affect the quality of the water and force us to postpone the event for health reasons,” they added.
“Despite the improvement in water quality over the last few hours, the values recorded at certain points along the swimming route are still above acceptable limits,” the organisers added.
The State and the Paris region’s local authorities have invested 1.4 billion euros to make the Seine and its main tributary, the Marne, swimmable for the Olympic Games and then for the general public.