PARIS AP – Paris Olympics organisers and other officials cancelled a paratriathlon swimming test event yesterday in the Seine River because of new concerns about water quality.
The competition was transformed into a duathlon instead, involving just running and biking.
The cancellation is a fresh blow both to organisers of the 2024 Summer Games and to the city’s ambitions to reopen the iconic river to public swimming after next year’s Olympics.
Swimmers took to the Seine in competition on Thursday and Friday, but results of water quality tests showed “significant discrepancies” in the hours leading up to yesterday’s events, organisers said in a statement.
It said officials from World Triathlon, the Paris Olympics, Paris City Hall and the Paris region jointly decided to cancel yesterday’s events “as a measure of precaution, to not put the health and safety of the athletes in danger”.
A previous test event had to be cancelled earlier this month because heavy rain caused overflows of untreated waste in the Seine, leaving water quality below safety standards.
Rainfall also hit Paris ahead of the cancellation.
New tests will be conducted and a decision will be made today on whether the swimming events can be held as scheduled, organisers said.
