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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Seine pollution forces cancellation of third Olympics test event

The swimming stage of a triathlon in Paris's Seine River was cancelled on Sunday due to pollution, organisers announced, raising further questions about holding competitions there during the 2024 Olympics.

Seine pollution forces cancellation of third Olympics test event
This photograph taken on August 19, 2023, shows a view of the Seine river with the Notre Dame Cathedral in the background, in Paris. Photo: Emmanuel DUNAND/AFP.

The mixed relay triathlon is the third pre-Olympics test event to be affected by excessive E. coli bacteria in the water, but organisers insist the Seine will be fit to host events next year.

The triathlon was changed to a duathlon only involving cycling and running after analyses of the water quality did not offer the “necessary guarantees”, said the Paris Olympics organising committee and governing body World Triathlon.

The same solution was reached for a para-triathlon test event on Saturday, while the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup was cancelled altogether earlier this month.

As organisers investigated the source of Saturday’s elevated E. coli readings Tony Estanguet, the head of the Paris 2024 organising committee, stressed there was no “Plan B” for next year’s sporting extravaganza.

“There is no solution to move the event, the triathlon and open water swimming will be held in the Seine next year,” he insisted.

“From the start, we have remained on the same project, to organise the triathlon and para-triathlon in this extraordinary site. You have a beautiful setting between the Grand Palais, the Invalides, this Alexandre III bridge. This course, I believe, is unanimous.”

The cause of this impasse in the Seine remains the same: the concentration of Escherichia Coli (E. coli) bacteria in the river.

Storms, causing heavy rainfall leading to overflowing sewers spilling into the river, are not the cause, officials insist.

“An investigation is underway to find the cause of this degradation but, to date, we have not yet found an explanation,” Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Sport and the Olympics told AFP.

“We missed out by very little,” said French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera. “It’s extremely encouraging, you have to see the glass half full. I repeat, we will be ready.”

‘Still being developed’

A triathlon has never been converted into a duathlon at the Olympics since its introduction at the 2000 Sydney Games.

“It would be a shame but we adapted to a duathlon this morning,” said Beth Potter, winner of the women’s race on Thursday and second in Sunday’s mixed relay with the British team.

“Hopefully by next year it will be okay. We saw that for the individual races it was okay, so hopefully it will be a triathlon.”

Britain’s Alex Yee, winner of the men’s race, added: “They are saying the water filtering is still being developed. So by next year it will be perfect.

“What they are doing is hugely historic, they are leaving a legacy after the Games. We can only applaud them.”

Local authorities are working to correct some 23,000 poor connections in private homes whose wastewater ends up in the river.

“We are a quarter of the way there,” said Oudea-Castera.

French world champion Leo Bergere said he had not “heard that athletes had come out sick” from the men’s race on Friday, the day on which the first below standard samples were taken.

“The objective was to make the Seine swimmable in 2024,” added Estanguet.

“This test comes along the way, the plan has not reached maturity. There are still great efforts, new means being deployed to improve the quality of the water in the Seine. As we have seen, it is improving month by month and will continue to improve.”

Olympic open water swimming has frequently been hit by pollution concerns.

At the end of the test event in 2019 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, swimmers protested against the quality of the water in Tokyo Bay.

At the Rio Olympics in 2016, the prospect of swimming in the polluted Guanabara Bay also made headlines.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

France racing to build giant army camp for Paris Olympics security

To house the thousands of soldiers tasked with keeping the Paris Olympics safe, France is building the largest army camp its mainland has seen since World War II, at breakneck pace.

France racing to build giant army camp for Paris Olympics security

Row upon row of temporary barracks have risen up in the Bois de Vincennes in eastern Paris where the Foire du Trône fairground once stood, green army bunk beds and massive mess halls for 4,500 troops replacing merry-go-rounds and candyfloss.

Construction of the camp is being held to a record deadline of 65 days, with the first soldiers due to arrive on July 3rd.

Thirteen days later, they will be guarding the showpiece opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics along a six-kilometre stretch of the River Seine – the focus of persistent security worries.

“We’re on schedule,” insisted Denis Lesaffre from the Economat des Armees, a logistics partner of the armed forces which is managing the work.

In all, 18,000 military personnel will be on hand to provide security for the Games, which will last from July 26th to August 11th.

They will provide support for 45,000 members of the internal security forces, police and gendarmerie, along with a number of private security guards ranging between 18,000 and 22,000 a day.

Though it may compare in scale to the camps that were built when Nazi boots still stood on French soil, its amenities would be rather alien to the soldiers of the time.

“In 1945, we were building camps of tents,” Commissar General Philippe Pourque told AFP.

“In 2024, it’s a permanent structure with facilities that were unimaginable 50 years ago: WiFi, air conditioning,” Pourque said.

Such amenities were “essential to ensure that our soldiers are able to cope” during the Olympics, he added, calling the standard “almost superior to those of our deployments in our theatres of operation abroad.”

The last major camp set up by the French armed forces in recent years was in Gao, Mali.

Up to 2,000 men were deployed there in the middle of the desert as part of the anti-jihadist Operation Barkhane, before their departure in 2022.

A city within a city, the camp boasts rooms with space for up to 18 soldiers, plumbing connected to the Paris network and a weightlifting gym, as well as three bars with beer on tap – but no hard liquor or wine.

The soldiers’ main mission will be to carry out patrols, covering around 20 kilometres on each outing while carrying around 20 kilos of equipment on their backs.

In the event of a crisis, they must be ready to deploy within 30 minutes.

The biggest worries are “the terrorist threat, drones, and the protest threat, cyber attacks”, according Christophe Abad, the military commander for the Paris region.

The camp is named after Corporal Alain Mimoun, who joined the army aged 18 and went on to become one of France’s greatest athletes, winning Olympic medals in 1948, 1952 and 1956 on the track and in the marathon.

At the request of the heritage and environment departments, the 10-hectare site is fenced off and is designed to blend in to the landscape.

No building exceeds one storey in height, and each one is set back at least two metres away from protected trees.

Even the design of the canteen reflects the surrounding pines, beeches and chestnuts.

Spread over 5,000 square metres, the canteen has seats for 2,100 hungry soldiers who will consume tonnes of food over the course of the Olympics.

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