No more jokes. Almost one month to the day after the cancellation of the Seine swimming section of the Paris 2024 Games triathlon test event, the French capital is stepping up its anti-pollution measures for the river. Pierre Rabadan, Paris City Council’s deputy sports director, made the announcement on Tuesday September 19 during a round-table discussion organized as part of the “Demain le sport” day of debate. The Parisian politician explained that the test event incident, caused by a malfunctioning sewage valve, had led the city of Paris, the French government and the regional prefecture to implement “a much stricter network monitoring plan“. Details will be announced in the coming days. “There will be extremely close monitoring of all those involved in the river“, insisted Pierre Rabadan. As a reminder, pollution of the Seine was responsible for the cancellation of test open-water swimming events in early August, followed by triathlon and para-triathlon events two weeks later. In the first case, heavy rainfall in the French capital in July was to blame. In the second case, the cause was technical: an automatic valve at the Tolbiac water treatment plant. Indicated as closed, it was in fact faulty, causing wastewater to leak into the river.
