PARIS: Excessive pollution in Paris’ Seine River forced organisers to cancel a pre-Olympics test swimming competition due to take place on Sunday, the sport’s international federation said.

Following recent heavy rainfall and analysis of the latest water samples, “water quality in the Seine has remained below acceptable standards for safeguarding swimmers’ health,” World Aquatics said in a statement on Sunday.

“Based on this weekend, it is clear that further work is needed with Paris 2024 and local authorities to ensure robust contingency plans are in place for next year.”

Friday’s training for the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup had already been cancelled and the women’s race was postponed from Saturday to Sunday in the hope the water quality would improve.

Heavy rains in Paris for the past week have caused sewers to overflow, polluting the Seine with wastewater.

Pierre Rabadan, a deputy to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo responsible for the Olympics and the Seine, said he was “disappointed” for the athletes.

Speaking to reporters in front of empty pontoons set up for the event, he said real-time readings by city hall indicated a “good” water quality on Sunday morning.

But the excessive levels of E. coli were measured in water samples taken 24 hours previously, meaning the cancellation came down to a “few hours”, he said.

World Aquatics president Husain Al Musa­llam said the body was “disappointed” by the cancellation. “But the health of our athletes must always be our top priority,” he added.

The federation said it “understands that further infrastructure projects will be completed to significantly improve water quality in the Seine” before next year’s Olympics.

An 80 billion euro ($88 billion) underground overflow basin designed to prevent bacterial contamination of the river by heavy rains is expected to be completed before the games.

The Paris Olympics organising committee and local authorities have repeatedly said that recent rainfall in the French capital has been unusually high.

Brigitte Legare, an official in charge of competitions in central Paris, said a spare day was available if the Olympic events had to be delayed but insisted the Seine would host them as planned.

“Plan B is swimming in the Seine. I am confident... we’ll get there,” she said.World Triathlon said on Sunday that triathletes would still compete on the Olympic and Paralympic courses for the Paris 2024 test event from Aug 17-20 — with the swimming legs taking place in the Seine.

“For Paris 2024 and World Triathlon, the health and safety of athletes is our top priority,” the sport’s governing body said in a statement.

“We will therefore... continue to carefully monitor water quality over the coming days, in the confident expectation — based on the current weather forecast — that elite athletes will compete in the Seine later this month.

“In the unlikely event that water quality does not meet the requirement of World Triathlon and public health authorities, a contingency plan is in place which would see the race(s) shifted to a duathlon format.”

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2023