The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris organizers have come under fire from Belgian triathlete Jolien Vermeylen for forcing athletes to compete in the heavily contaminated Seine River. The women’s competition, which was postponed, saw Jolien place 24th on Wednesday, July 31.
“We’ll find out tomorrow whether I’m sick or not because I drank a lot of water,” the 30-year-old said to TV station VTM.
It doesn’t taste like Coca-Cola or Sprite, naturally,” she went on. They cannot claim that the athletes’ safety is a top priority when the Seine has been tainted for a century. That is absurd!
Jolien said she took a lot of water during the swim leg, but she took care to prevent feeling sick, Metro said on Thursday, August 1.
“It would have been a disgrace for the organization, for Paris, and for France if the race hadn’t taken place,” she continued.
Olympic triathlete slams 2024 Paris organizers for the unsanitary conditions of the Seine River after participating in an event
Image credits: Ezra Shaw/Getty
The event occurred shortly after Canadian competitor Tyler Mislawchuk, who was competing in the men’s triathlon, was observed throwing up a lot at the finish line.
The River Seine was the focus of a government initiative that aimed to make its waters “swimmable” by 2025 for both the general public and athletes, prior to the event.
The program included several sanitization processes and efforts to rehabilitate infrastructure, with expenses reaching up to $1.5 billion.
Image credits: Ezra Shaw/Getty
Its waters have failed multiple tests to detect the presence of germs and other pollutants, therefore the efforts have been considered insufficient.
The event’s organizers were forced to postpone the race, which was initially scheduled on July 30, 2024, due to the stream’s worsening conditions caused by the weekend’s heavy rains.
“I couldn’t do more than drink my Yakult and take probiotics. Vermeylen said, “I tried the idea of not drinking water, but it didn’t work out. It’s a fermented milk beverage that helps with intestinal health.
The river has been subjected to numerous sanitization procedures, but tests months prior to the Olympic opening ceremony deemed the amounts of bacteria in it to be “unacceptable”
Image credits: jolien_vermeylen
Due to the presence of sewage, garbage, and bacteria like E. coli, swimming in the Seine has been forbidden for over a century. This is because swimmers run the risk of inadvertently swallowing the water.
Prior to the Olympics, scientists found that bacterial concentrations remained at unacceptable levels until June 2024. Data revealed that the amount of E. coli in the stream surpassed sports federation guidelines by a factor of ten.
The infection described above is frequently associated with feces, which the athlete mentioned coming into contact with throughout the race. She said, “I felt and saw things while swimming under the bridge that we shouldn’t think about too much.”
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