The men’s Olympic triathlon scheduled to start Tuesday morning has been postponed after water quality tests in the River Seine showed it was still at unsafe levels for athletes, organizers said.
The event was set to be held at 8 a.m. Tuesday, but Olympics organizers and World Triathlon decided to hold it on 10:45 a.m. Wednesday instead, according to a post shared on X. That would put the starting time about three hours after the women’s event is set to start around 8 a.m. — assuming it is able to be held on that day.
“Both triathlons are subject to the forthcoming water tests complying with the established World Triathlon thresholds for swimming,” said World Triathlon, the sport’s governing body. “Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that their priority is the health of the athletes. The tests carried out in the Seine today revealed water quality levels that did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held.”
If either race is not able to be held Wednesday, it would be rescheduled for Friday, Aug. 2.
“Unfortunately, meteorological events beyond our control, such as the rain which fell on Paris on 26 and 27 July, can alter water quality and compel us to reschedule the event for health reasons,” the statement from World Triathlon read. “Despite the improvement on the water quality levels in the last hours, the readings at some points of the swim course are still above the acceptable limits.”
Concerns about the water quality in the Seine River led officials to call off the swimming portion of an Olympic triathlon training session for a second straight day Monday.
Organizers overseeing the event at the Paris Games had been optimistic that triathletes would be able to swim in the city’s famed waterway when the competition was set to start Tuesday. Organizers also made the decision to cancel the swim workout early Monday following a meeting over water quality in the Seine.
World Triathlon, along with its medical team and city officials were banking on sunny weather and higher temperatures to bring the bacteria levels below the necessary limits to stage the swim portion of the race, which also includes biking and running. But that had not happened yet by Tuesday morning in Paris.
French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra told French news channel CNEWS on Monday that officials are “absolutely serene about all of this.” The plans they put in place to control bacteria levels in the river have been effective, but the weather is beyond their control, she said.
Authorities are banking on sunny weather and higher temperatures to bring the levels of E. coli bacteria below the necessary limits to stage the swim portion of a race that also includes biking and running.
Organizers have said if elevated bacteria levels persist, the swimming portion of the race will be abandoned and the athletes will compete in a duathlon.
Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century in big part because of the poor water quality. Organizers have invested 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to prepare the river ahead of the Olympics.
Daily water quality tests in early June indicated unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, followed by recent improvements. Some of the measures put in place to improve the water quality include the construction of a giant basin to capture excess rainwater and keep wastewater from flowing into the river, renovating sewer infrastructure and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a very public swim in the river about two weeks before Olympic events were set to start, hoping to ease fears about the long-polluted waterway being clean enough to host swimming competitions.
Kate Brumback and Pat Graham of the Associated Press contributed to this report.