“I’m just purely happy,” she said after her escape, making good on her vow with just nine days to go until the start of the Paris Marathon. Olympic.
After months of delays and reported pollution concerns, Hidalgo’s symbolic swim in the turquoise-brown waters was broadcast live on national television, with hundreds of spectators and deployed soldiers and police looking on from the riverbank and a nearby bridge.
Swimming in the Seine It has been Swimming on the Seine had been banned for a century, mainly due to health concerns over occasional overflows of wastewater from the city’s old sewers into the river. In 2015, Governor Hidalgo announced plans to make the river a centerpiece of the Olympics, holding the opening ceremonies, triathlon and marathon swim on the river.
But despite a $1.5 billion investment, bacteria levels exceeded safety standards, leading to the suspension of the Paralympic triathlon swimming and Open Water Swimming World Cup Last summer. This year Surfrider Foundation Environmental organizations ‘Alarming’ contamination reportedSix months of testing revealed higher than recommended levels of E. coli and enterococcus bacteria. The swimming promised by the mayor of Paris was a big hit, but it was not enough to prevent the spread of the bacteria from excessive rainfall. Political turmoil in France.
Just last month, the ambitious project was in danger of becoming an embarrassment. first time There was talk of a Plan B for the highly anticipated Seine race. But the gloom has given way to renewed enthusiasm in recent days as the weather has improved and the water quality of the Seine has reached safe standards for most days this month. According to city measurements.
On Saturday, France’s Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castellas became the first French government official to conquer the Seine. She rushed into the river as President Emmanuel Macron’s government was on the brink of resigning following defeat in this month’s general election. Her swim, likely intended to outdo Hidalgo, didn’t go entirely to plan. In scenes captured on television, Oudéa-Castellas slipped on the riverbank and then slid into the water.
President Macron also vowed to swim the Seine earlier this year but did not take part.
Meanwhile, Hidalgo, who leads a left-wing Socialist party newly invigorated after the election, led a meticulously choreographed event on Wednesday, with organizers setting up a makeshift pier and so many journalists that some had to watch from outside the security line.
“Now we are ready for the Olympics,” Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, said after entering the water accompanied by Hidalgo and regional secretary Marc Guillaume.
Although the weather looks fine for the next few days, there is no guarantee the Seine will be as clean when the swimming competition takes place, scheduled for late July and August.
Unusually high river flows, caused by heavy rains earlier in the summer, also continue to raise concerns: if the river does not slow over the next nine days, organisers may be forced to change plans for a river parade at the opening ceremony on July 26.
Despite those lingering questions, residents who watched Wednesday’s swim said they are excited about the Olympics.
“There’s a lot of criticism of the Olympics,” said Margaux Tellier, 34. But being able to swim in the Seine “will raise awareness of the environment and climate change,” she said.
French authorities want to open a river-fed swimming pool along the Seine for Parisians and tourists. The Louvre and Notre Dameand other disadvantaged areas.
“It would be great if all Parisians had space to swim,” Tellier said.
Swimming events were held in the Seine when Paris hosted the first Olympic Games in 1900, but industrialization caused the river’s pollution levels to rapidly deteriorate, and public swimming was officially banned in 1923.
In the 1990s, then-Mayor Jacques Chirac The mayor of Paris vowed to clean up the river and even threatened to jump in himself, but that never happened. But the high profile and influx of money that came with the Olympics accelerated the plan, and officials hailed it as a way for Parisians to reconnect with their city and the river.
The plan relies in part on a new reservoir to prevent sewage from overflowing into the Seine, and an upstream water treatment plant, both of which only recently opened. The new reservoir can collect the equivalent of 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of excess storm and wastewater during heavy rains, reducing the risk of overwhelming the city’s aging sewer system.
Matisse Joubert, a 24-year-old city employee, said he was “a little apprehensive” before entering the river on Wednesday. Growing up in Paris, he had long thought of the Seine as a smelly, unpleasant river. Three years ago, he said, he couldn’t imagine swimming in it.
But Wednesday’s drop was “perfect,” he said.
Ellen Francis contributed to this report.
