Men's Olympic triathlon postponed due to pollution levels in Seine River

PARIS -- The men's triathlon at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris has been postponed after tests carried out in the Seine "revealed water quality levels that did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held," officials said.

Originally scheduled to take place at 8 a.m. local time on Tuesday, the event has now been postponed and is scheduled to take place on Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. following the completion of the Women's Triathlon competition, subject to e forthcoming water tests complying with the established World Triathlon thresholds for swimming.

"Unfortunately, meteorological events beyond our control, such as the rain which fell over Paris on 26 and 27 July, can alter water quality and compel us to reschedule the event for health reasons," Olympic officials said in a statement early Tuesday morning. "Despite the improvement of water quality levels over the last hours, the readings at some points of the swim course are still above the acceptable limits."

Olympic organizers said that updated information regarding tickets and broadcast of the events on Wednesday will be shared in the next hours.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, swam in the Seine on July 17 in a showcase intended to show how clean the river was for the outdoor swimming events at the Olympics, even after the Seine's water quality remained questionable and had repeatedly failed tests in advance of the 33rd Olympiad.

"On the eve of the Games, when the Seine will play a key role, this event represents the demonstration of the efforts made by the city and the state to improve the quality of the Seine's waters and the ecological state of the river," Hidalgo's office said in a statement on before her swim.

Even that swim had been postponed from when it was originally scheduled to take place in June but river samples at the time were deemed to be too unhealthy for her to swim in.

During heavy rains, sewage can overflow into the river. For example, on June 18, after several days of rain, E. coli levels in the Seine River jumped to roughly 10,000 Colony Forming Units per milliliter, more than 10 times the safety limit.

According to findings published by Paris City Hall earlier this month, the last week of June saw four days when the water was clean enough to swim in, according to European standards, but no days when it was clean enough to swim in according to U.S. standards.

Paris Olympics officials initially insisted there would be "no plan B," but organizers revealed their contingency plans on July 5, saying that open-water swimming might take place in the Marne River instead. In addition, officials said they could delay the triathlon event or, in the worst-case scenario, eliminate the swimming portion of the competition altogether.