The mayor of Paris takes a dip in the Seine River to demonstrate his improved hygiene ahead of the Olympic events
PARIS: After months of anticipation, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip in the Seine River on Wednesday, fulfilling a promise she made months ago to show the river was clean enough to host the open swimming events at the 2024 Olympics – and the opening ceremony. Nine days away on the river.
Dressed in a wetsuit, Hidalgo plunged into the river near City Hall, her office and Notre Dame Cathedral, looking glamorous. Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, joined him.
“The water is very, very good. A little cold, but not too bad,” Hidalgo said as he rose.
It is part of a wider effort to demonstrate improved cleanliness of the river ahead of the Summer Games which will begin on July 26 with a grand open-air ceremony that includes a parade of athletes in boats on the Seine. Daily water quality testing in early June showed E. coli bacteria indicated unsafe levels, following recent improvements.
Since 2015, organizers have invested heavily — $1.5 billion — to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and ensure a clean river for Parisians in the years after the Games. The plan included building a huge underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewage infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
Despite repeated promises among politicians, swimming in the Seine has been banned for more than a century. Former French President Jacques Chirac made a similar promise when he was mayor of Paris in 1988, but it was never fulfilled.
Hidalgo will follow in the footsteps of French Sports Minister Amelie Oude-Castara, who swam the Seine on Saturday wearing a full body suit.
Originally planned for June, Hidalgo's swim was postponed due to snap parliamentary elections in France. Early on, the hashtag “jechiedanslaSeine” (“I'm pooping in the Seine”) trended on social media as some threatened to protest the Olympics by defecating upstream.
Concerns about the Seine's flow and pollution levels continue, prompting daily water quality testing by the monitoring group Eau de Paris. In early June the results showed that E. coli bacteria indicated unsafe levels, following recent improvements.
Sen will host several open water swimming events at the Games, including the marathon swim at the Olympic Games and the swim leg of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.
