In the months leading up to the Paris Games, one of the biggest questions was not only which athletes would compete, but whether the Seine would be safe enough to host some of the swimming events.
The speculation grew more intense as the Games progressed. The swimming portion of a practice session ahead of the men’s and women’s individual triathlons on July 31 cancel Due to concerns about water quality, the tournament was finally held on July 31, but the athletes…Not very excited Then over the weekend the news broke. Several athletes fell ill After a swim in the Seine.
On August 4, Belgium withdrew from the mixed relay event scheduled for the following day. As Belgian publications reported, 35-year-old Claire Michel was De Stendhal It was reported that E. coli infectionWhile it is not clear whether her illness is linked to the other cases (and whether any of those cases were due to swimming in the dirty water), the development highlights safety concerns that athletes and public health experts have expressed since it was announced that several Olympic events would take place in Paris’ iconic waterway.
“That river is notoriously dirty, so swimming has been banned there for about 100 years.” Dr. Bill Sullivan“We have a lot of sewage that goes into the river, and also soil erosion can cause animal waste to get into the river,” , a microbiologist and professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, tells SELF. “These two factors combined can cause a lot of nasty problems.” E. coliparasites Cryptosporidium and Giardia, According to Dr. Sullivan, there are plenty of other bugs out there.
You’d think that risk would go down after a downpour (fresh water is nice, right?), but Dr. Sullivan says that’s actually the opposite: Heavy rain is a huge risk factor, especially in older cities with old sewer systems like Paris, where flooding can wash all that land-based waste into the rivers, he says. With that in mind, it’s notable that it rained during the opening ceremony just a few days before the triathlon.
However, the World Triathlon Association, the governing body of triathlon, deemed the results of last-minute tests to “meet the criteria”, allowing the athletes to swim in the Seine. NBCThe mixed relay event scheduled for August 5th was held as scheduled after a meeting of relevant parties, including representatives from the World Triathlon Association and the International Olympic Committee, over the weekend to review the latest water quality test results, which showed that bacteria levels were within the required limits. Associated Press report.
But even impressive test results don’t guarantee swimming is safe. The tests only target certain species of bacteria in feces, E. coli Dr. Sullivan says there could be bacteria in the water as a proxy for other pathogens. In most cases, it’s “probably OK, but it’s not a 100% guarantee that there aren’t any other pathogens in the water.” Overall, he says the whole swimming situation makes him “pretty uneasy.”
