Is The Seine River Making Olympians Sick?

The Summer Olympics have involved swimming since the inaugural version of the modern Games in 1896.

However, history teaches us that humans have been swimming since 2,500 B.C., so it’s fair to assume that there may have been some swimming competitions in the original version of the Olympics which took place thousands of years ago.

While the ancient Egyptians swam for leisure, we know that the ancient Greeks and Romans used swimming as a means of training soldiers. Since much of the early Olympics focused on events that translated to the battlefield, athletes have likely been swimming competitively for thousands of years.

History of Olympic Triathlons

The triathlon is a much newer event than many of its Olympic counterparts. During the 2000 Olympics, held in Sydney Australia, the triathlon made its Olympic debut.

The first iteration of the event saw 48 women and 52 men compete in separate versions of the event. The competition required competitors to swim .93 miles before bicycling for 25 miles, culminating in a foot race that covered 6.2 miles.

Since then, the distances have remained the same, but the number of competitors has changed slightly. The 2024 Paris Olympics included 110 triathletes, 55 men and 55 women.

The Seine River, which was the same river that played such a pivotal role in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, has been the site of multiple events during the Olympics this year.

However, there is some speculation that the Seine River is making athletes sick when they swim in it. Is the Seine River contaminated, resulting in it adversely affecting Olympians? Find out more today.

Belgium Withdrew From One Event

Belgium announced that they would not be taking part in the mixed triathlon relay after Claire Michel, a Belgium Olympian, got sick after swimming in the women’s triathlon event. The event took place on a Wednesday, and Michel was taken to a local hospital the following Sunday due to her symptoms.

While she was discharged and returned to the Olympic Village later that evening, Belgium’s Olympic delegates made the decision to pull their athletes out of the mixed relay event. This was done both for the safety of the other Belgium competitors, and due to the fact that Michel was slated to take part in the event.

Reportedly, there were some discussions about Belgium using another athlete to handle Michel’s part of the event, but the committee eventually decided to withdraw completely.

However, the decision by the Belgium Olympic Committee (BOIC or COIB) did result in some changes being made to the schedule. Tests were conducted on the water in the Seine River, and the experts found higher-than-usual levels of bacteria in the water.

With this in mind, Olympic organizers canceled practice runs that were slated to take place on the weekend before the event.

Is the Seine River Contaminated?

The examination of the water in the Seine River following the issue with Claire Michel found that there was E. coli present in the water.

While most public waterways have some level of E. coli in them, it’s rarely enough to result in sickness. This is especially true when considering the physical condition of triathletes who qualify to compete on the biggest stage in the world.

The World Triathlon’s guidelines regarding water safety, as well as a 2006 directive issued by the European Union, assigned qualitative values to different ranges of E. coli levels.

According to those edicts, E. coli levels of up to 1,000 colony-forming units for every 100 milliliters are considered “good,” which means that competition in the water can continue as scheduled.

There was some controversy surrounding these tests, though. Organizers claimed that tests done on the water in the Seine River showed that the quality was “very good,” making it safe for swimming.

However, Olympic organizers then canceled practices slated for Saturday and Sunday because the river’s contamination levels were not safe enough for Olympians to swim in them.

If there were any questions surrounding the Seine River’s contaminated waters, they were answered when the men’s triathlon event was delayed by one day.

While the Olympic Committee and Olympic organizers in Paris intentionally leave the schedule flexible in the event of delays, those are usually because of weather or some other sort of issue. It’s rare for an event to be postponed because it’s not safe for the athletes to be exposed to the water.

Did Other Athletes Get Sick?

If Michel was the only Olympian to get sick after swimming in the Seine River, there probably wouldn’t have been much to worry about. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Adrien Bifford, a Swiss athlete who swam in the Seine River on Wednesday, also got sick, according to delegates from Switzerland’s Olympic delegation. Per their report, Bifford suffered a stomach infection after being in the water.

That’s not where the issues ended for the Swiss team. Simon Westermann, the swimmer who was chosen to replace Adrien Bifford on the Swiss team, suffered a gastrointestinal infection, forcing him to withdraw from the competition.

However, there’s some confusion surrounding Westermann’s infection and subsequent withdrawal, as it was reported that he had yet to swim in the Seine River, raising concerns about other potential causes of his infection.

Vetle Bergsvik, a Norwegian triathlete also became ill after competing in the men’s triathlon The sports director for the Norwegian Triathlon Federation, Arild Tveiten, said that the cause of Bergsvik’s illness was unclear.

However, based on the timeline of his swimming the Seine River and when his symptoms initially presented, many insiders believe that the two are related.

What Does It All Mean?

The 2024 Paris Olympics included five events that were to take place in the Seine River, and three of them were completed before the date of this writing. The women’s marathon event is scheduled for August 8 while the men’s event is scheduled for the following day, August 9.

One of the most dangerous aspects of the 2024 Olympics in regard to the Seine River involves some infrastructural issues that surround the area. Periods of heavy rainfall often result in raw sewage flowing into the river.

Raw sewage is one of the primary causes of E. coli infection. These sanitation issues resulted in a swimming ban in the Seine River that lasted for nearly 100 years.

These concerns are primarily responsible for an ongoing cleanup effort in and around the river, which Paris officials have spent the last nine years on.

The presence of bacteria in the Seine River isn’t new, and it was a concern for many Olympians and the delegations from their home countries from the moment that Paris was awarded the 2024 Summer Olympics.

In the days leading up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, there were concerns about the cleanliness of the Seine River. In an effort to put some of those fears to rest, the mayor of Paris, France, Anne Hidalgo, swam in the river on July 17, 2024.

The 2028 Games were awarded to Los Angeles, California. Organizers from the city and the United States Olympic Committee already have plans in place regarding where the triathlon, swimming marathon, and other water-based events will take place.

The plan is for swimmers who participate in the triathlon and marathon to swim in the waterfront area in Long Beach, California. Ideally, there won’t be any safety concerns when the Games head to the West Coast in four years.