River Seine passes health tests for triathlon and swimming, but weather forecast could spell disaster for Paris Olympics
PARIS 2024 chiefs will be chuffed – for now – after the River Seine passed its latest health test to allow triathletes and swimmers to compete.
But the weather forecast could spell trouble for organisers as heavy rain is expected to fall on Friday night and on Saturday during the daytime.
The hotly anticipated opening ceremony is taking place ON the river in an Olympic first.
Health tests concluded that the water quality of the Seine at the Alexandre-III bridge in Paris has been up to the required standard over the past week.
The French river, which has historically been polluted with chemicals, garbage, and human waste, will host several open-water swimming events over the next 17 days.
Olympic chiefs were conducting daily tests on the water running through the French capital after potentially dangerous levels of E.coli were detected.
At all four monitoring points, the water quality complied with European standards six out of seven days.
The one day in which the water didn’t reach the required standard was after Paris had seen heavy rain.
Despite the improving water quality results since the end of June, organisers remain worried about any changes in pollution levels.
The issue has arose in part due to France experiencing the heaviest period of rainfall for 30 years, causing sewers to flood.
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What is E.Coli?
ESCHERICHIA coli – or E. coli – is a bacteria that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms.
Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a bacteria that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms.
Most E.coli strains are harmless, but some can cause serious food poisoning.
Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) is a bacterium that can cause severe foodborne disease.
In most cases, the illness is self-limiting, but it may lead to a life-threatening disease including haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), especially in young children and the elderly.
An E. coli infection is a sickness you get from the E.coli bacteria. It causes a lot of diarrhea-related illnesses like traveler’s diarrhea (known by many other names including Montezuma’s revenge) and dysentery.
It also causes illnesses outside your intestines like pneumonia and spontaneous bacterial peritonitis.
In addition to Saturday, high levels of rainfall are expected on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Men’s Triathlon final is due to take place on Tuesday, while the Women’s Marathon Swimming begins during the last week of the Games.
Meanwhile Plan B consists of postponing the events for a few days.
And Plan C consists of moving the long swimming event to Vaires-sur-Marne in Northern France.
Emmanuel Macron’s government has spent over £1.2billion upgrading Paris’ sewage system and a major new storm water facility opened in April.
It is hoped this will prevent the current sewage system being overwhelmed by rainwater, thus putting a stop to the flow of untreated water entering the Seine.
The first Olympic games held in France used the iconic Seine River for events such as rowing, water polo, and swimming.
However, that was in 1900, 23 years before swimming in the river was outlawed by the French government for a century due to its poor water quality and health hazards.