‘It didn’t taste great.’ Olympic swimming in the Seine finally happens.
Summary
After years of debate, countless safety tests, $1.5 billion spent and one major event postponed, the most ambitious event of the Paris Olympics came to life when triathletes swam in the river.PARIS : France spent $1.5 billion to turn the Seine, the famously filthy river that flows through the heart of Paris, into a body of water that human beings could enter without contracting illness. Olympic organizers envisioned a postcard scene, with athletes swimming in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and the golden dome of Les Invalides.
Now, after years of debate, countless E. coli tests, and one major event postponed, the reviews are finally in.
“It didn’t taste great," Ainsley Thorpe of New Zealand said. “It’s a little bit brown."
At around 8 a.m. in Paris on Wednesday, 55 women dove into the Seine, battling murky waters and vicious currents for 1,500 meters, before returning to dry land to continue the triathlon.
The good news: Nobody vomited or encountered anything too unsavory in the river—so far, at least. The men followed at 10:45 a.m., roughly 27 hours later than planned. France’s Cassandre Beaugrand and Great Britain’s Alex Yee wound up winning gold medals.
As of early Wednesday morning, nobody knew for certain whether the triathlon would even take place. The men’s competition was initially scheduled for Tuesday, but officials pulled the plug because of unacceptably high levels of bacteria. Heavy rain had fallen onto the French capital over the weekend, resulting in sewage flowing straight into the Seine.
That represented a nightmare scenario for organizers, who long insisted that their audacious idea to have athletes swim in the Seine wouldn’t only work, but would create one of the signature moments of these Olympics.
There was no backup plan for the triathlon. If the situation didn’t improve Wednesday, there was a chance the event would become a duathlon. It wasn’t until raceday at 4 a.m. that the participants found out for sure that the Seine was clean enough to proceed.
“Hopefully it’s all right," said U.S. triathlete Seth Rider, “because I think I swallowed, like, a liter of water."
His teammate, Taylor Spivey, had a plan for that. “I’ve taken lots of probiotics in the last month," she said.
She might need them. Spivey also consumed more water than she would’ve liked, mostly because of another aspect of swimming in the Seine. She said the current was so strong that at one point she felt like she was on a treadmill and wondered if the swim would be called off.
Ultimately, though, Spivey had an even bigger concern.
“I’m more afraid of sharks, like that Netflix movie," she said.
Spivey was referring to “Under Paris," a French film released in June about a shark named Lilith who lurks in the Seine. In a climactic scene, the creature attacks during a major triathlon that the fictional Paris mayor refused to cancel despite warnings that it might be hazardous.
In reality, the Seine isn’t a suitable habitat for sharks. But for one day, at least, it was suitable for humans.
Write to Jared Diamond at jared.diamond@wsj.com and Laine Higgins at laine.higgins@wsj.com
