It’s done. With less than 500 days to go before the opening of the Games (D – 455 this Friday 28 April), the organisers of the Paris 2024 Games have ticked a new box on their roadmap. They have unveiled the triathlon course for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Or rather the courses, since there are three of them: two for the Olympic event (individual event and mixed relay), one for the Paralympic event. The common point: the Seine. The three routes will share the same starting point: a floating pontoon positioned at the foot of the Alexandre III Bridge, between the Invalides and the Grand Palais. For the two individual events, scheduled for 30 and 31 July 2024, the triathletes will plunge into the Seine for a 1.5 km swim in two loops (910 then 590 m). They will then reach the transition zone on the Alexandre III bridge, after having climbed 32 steps, a first in the history of the Olympic Games. The cycling course (40 km) will consist of 7 loops of 5.715 km. It will take the Avenue Winston Churchill, passing in front of the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, before joining the Champs-Elysées and the Avenue Montaigne, to cross the Seine by the Pont des Invalides and reach the Quai d’Orsay. We then head for the Boulevard Saint-Germain, before returning to the banks of the Seine via the Rue du Bac and the Quais Anatole France and Quai d’Orsay. After a second transition, still on the Alexandre III bridge, the foot race (10 km in four 2.5 km laps) will finish on the same bridge, which will be equipped with a grandstand for 1,000 spectators. A week later, on 5 August, the mixed relay will take a very similar course, but reduced in distance: 300 m swimming in the Seine between the Alexandre III bridge and the Invalides bridge, 5.8 km cycling, then 1.8 km running to finish. At the Paralympic Games, where the triathlon will be held for the third time, the course will also start on the floating pontoon at the foot of the Pont Alexandre III for a 750m swim to the Pont des Invalides, before returning to the Port des Invalides and the first transition zone. The cycling section (20 km in five 3.7 km loops) will pass through the Quai d’Orsay, Avenue Winston Churchill, the Champs-Elysées, Avenue Montaigne and Rue François 1er. Finally, the foot race (5 km in two 2.5 km loops) will take in the Cours de la Reine, the Concorde Bridge and the Quai d’Orsay, then the Boulevard Saint-Germain for a finish on the Alexandre III Bridge. Tony Estanguet assured the media that the routes chosen by the OCOG and validated by the World Triathlon Association will meet three major objectives of the Paris 2024 Games: “spectacular dimension, high standards and heritage”, the latter of which will be achieved by the reopening of the Seine to swimming, announced for the year 2025. The three courses will be tested during the test events organised by Paris 2024 from 17 to 20 August 2023.
