Athletes swim in the Seine River during the triathlon at the Olympic Games in Paris on Wednesday, July 31.
Laure Boyer/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
convert caption
Laure Boyer/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
The Belgian Olympic team withdrew from the mixed triathlon on Monday after one of the team’s triathletes, Claire Michel, fell ill after swimming in the Seine last Wednesday — a river that regularly faces water quality and safety issues. concerns.
“The Belgian Hammers will not compete in the Mixed Relay at the Paris Olympics,” the Belgian team said in a statement. liberate, release, free“Michel, one of the athletes in the mixed relay team, unfortunately had to withdraw from the competition due to illness.”
While the Olympic team did not describe Michel’s illness nor blame the Seine, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard reported that the triathlete was hospitalized and treated for an E. coli infection on Sunday, a type of bacteria that can cause serious intestinal and medical problems.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Olympic organizers canceled a planned practice swim for triathletes after poor water quality test results. In a release obtained by NPR, organizers said “heavy rain” on Wednesday and Thursday led to the cancellation of the practice swim. The heavy rains could have overwhelmed the city’s aging sewer system, leaking untreated sewage into the Seine — increasing the risk of drowning. E. coli bacteria.
In the years leading up to the Olympic Games in Paris, France spent more than $1 billion to clean up the Seine, which has been off-limits to swimming for more than a century. It has long been considered too polluted for human use. On July 17, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo jumped into its murky waters and declared, “We did it!”
The Olympic triathletes — including Michel — competed in the Seine for the last time on Wednesday. The Olympians will now swim in the Seine on Monday for the mixed triathlon, without the Belgian team. Daily river checks will resume ahead of Monday’s triathlon and the marathon swim races scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
“Belgian Triathlon hopes that lessons will be learned for future triathlons,” the Belgian team said in a statement. “We are thinking of training days that can be guaranteed, competition dates and formats that are clarified in advance and situations that do not cause uncertainty for athletes, their entourages and fans.”
