PARIS (AP) — After months of anticipation, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has announced the long-tainted Seine river On Wednesday, he made good on his promise to demonstrate that the river is clean enough to host summer swimming meets. 2024 Olympics — and there are just nine days until the opening ceremony on the river.
Clad in a wetsuit and goggles, Hidalgo jumped into the river near the imposing city hall, her office and Notre Dame Cathedral, accompanied by Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, Marc Guillaume, a senior government official in the Paris region, and swimmers from a local swimming club.
“The Seine is amazing,” Hidalgo said from the water. After emerging, she continued to praise the water, saying, “It’s very nice. It’s a little cold, but it’s not bad.” She also mentioned the city’s “swimming initiative,” which began in 2015, calling today a “dream” and “proof that we’ve done a lot of work.”
They swam about 100 metres down the river, alternating between crawl and breaststroke.
“I’ve been doing sports on the river for 20 years and I think it’s great that they’re trying to clean up the river,” said Estanguett, a three-time Olympic gold medal winner in canoeing.
It’s part of a wider effort to highlight improved river cleanliness ahead of the Summer Olympics, which begin on July 26. A lavish outdoor ceremony The event will include a parade of athletes on boats on the Seine. Daily water quality tests in early June showed dangerously high levels of E. coli, but have recently shown signs of improvement.
Swimming in the Seine has been banned for more than a century. Since 2015, organizers have been investing $1.5 billion to prepare the river for the Olympics and to make it cleaner for Parisians to use afterward. Plans included building a huge underground reservoir in central Paris, upgrading sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
Hidalgo’s swim was originally scheduled for June but was postponed due to France’s surprise parliamentary elections. The original date led some people to threaten to protest the Olympics by defecating upstream, leading to the hashtag “je chiedans la Seine” (defecating in the Seine) trending on social media.
Undaunted, Hidalgo carefully waded into the river on Wednesday using a ladder from an artificial pond set up for the event, which was accompanied by seven security boats.
Upstream the riverbank was crowded with curious onlookers.
“It was something I couldn’t miss,” said Lucy Coquelot, who woke up early to get the best view of Hidalgo Peak from the Pont de Sully bridge, which overlooks the swimming hole.
Enzo Galletto, a swimmer who competed in the French National Open Water Championships, was one of the swimmers invited to test swim the Seine with the mayor of Paris.
The 23-year-old swam just a few meters behind Hidalgo. “Her crawl form was pretty good,” he said as he emerged from the water. “It’s pretty special to be among people swimming in the middle of Paris for the first time in a really long time.”
Long after the officials had left the banks of the Seine, many swimmers were still in the water, some playing catch and others practising diving from an artificial pond, all in a festive mood.
Other politicians have also pledged to clean up the Seine, including former French president Jacques Chirac, who made a similar promise in 1988 when he was mayor of Paris, but never delivered.
Hidalgo followed in the footsteps of France’s sports minister Amelie Oudea CastellaOn Saturday I put on a full body suit and swam in the Seine.
Concerns continue over the Seine’s water levels and pollution levels, with watchdog group Hauts de Paris carrying out daily water quality tests – results in early June showed dangerously high levels of E. coli, though there have been recent signs of improvement.
The Seine will host several open water swimming events during the Games, including the Olympic marathon swimming and the Olympic and Paralympic triathlon swimming events.
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Barbara Sark in Nice, France, contributed to this report.
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Check out Associated Press’ coverage of the Paris Olympics. https://apnews.com/hub/2024-Paris-Olympic-Games
