The Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha, reigning Olympic champion in open water swimming, called in an interview with AFP for the organizers of the 2024 Olympics to develop a “plan B” in case the events could not take place in the Seine , due to poor water quality.
“It’s a concern.
There was no test event last year because of that, but (the organizers) insist on wanting the tests to take place there (...).
We need a plan B in case it is not possible to swim” in the Seine, declared the 31-year-old swimmer on the sidelines of a competition on Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro.
“It is not a question of erasing the history of the Seine, we know what the Alexandre-III bridge, the Eiffel Tower represent, but I think that the health of the athletes must come first,” argues the champion, according to which "the organizers must accept that, perhaps, it will unfortunately be impossible to carry out the events where they want [...] It is linked to an infrastructure problem: the Seine is not made for swimming ".
Collections will resume in June
Less than five months before the opening ceremony of the Paris Games (July 26 - August 11), the question of the water quality of the Seine during the Paris Olympics still arises.
Sampling to check water quality will resume in June, in weather conditions closer to those of the Games, while the river is currently in flood phase.
“All of this is well supervised […] It’s progressing, we’re going to be ready,” she specifies.
It will be the Cojo (Olympic organizing committee) which will decide on the holding of the events, based on certain thresholds.
At present, no “plan B” is planned, apart from possibly postponing the events in the event of a storm on D-Day.
The Seine is also to host the triathlon events, and its swimmability, as well as that of its tributary the Marne, is supposed to be one of the great legacies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Analyzes carried out from 2015 to 2023, transmitted to AFP by Paris town hall, show strong variations last summer, with several peaks in the concentration of two bacteria indicative of fecal contamination.
None of the 14 Parisian water sampling points has reached a sufficient level of quality with regard to European directives in 2023, generally from June to September.
Asked about her state of mind at the idea of having to compete with doubts about the quality of the water, Ana Marcela Cunha evokes “a before and an after”.
Macron promised to swim there
“On the day of the competition, there is not much to do (...).
But, afterwards, once you get out of the water, you can get sick two weeks later.
At the time of the competition, we don't think about it, we worry afterwards,” says the Brazilian champion, urging environmental awareness more widely.
“Everything is linked to the way we treat nature” and “everyone must play their role”, says the young thirty-year-old, citing the plastic pollution of the seas, even if, to return to the Paris Games, it is also “linked to an infrastructure problem: the Seine is not made for swimming”, according to her.
During his visit to the Olympic village, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron assured that he would swim in the Seine before the Olympics.
“And how yeah!”
There were commitments made, he replied, with a smirk.
I do, I will go.
But I'm not going to give you the date, you might be there.
» A promise which joins that of Anne Hidalgo in January, who assured: “we will swim in the Seine”.