Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, swims in the river Seine on July 17, 2024 to prove the iconic ...
[+] waterway is safe for swimmers of Olympic events. Getty Images After months of speculation, lots of testing for E.coli, an unpredictable general election and residents' threats to defecate in Paris' river Seine, it looks likely that swimming events in the iconic waterway will take place at the Olympic Games that opens in 9 days time—the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, finally swam in the river this morning to prove it is safe for athletes, rounding off an extremely political saga.
The Seine has been an open battleground for protesting the amount of money spent on the Olympic Games across Paris by those who thought it could be better spent on reducing wealth inequality in the city—protesters recently threatened to defecate in the Seine after the Mayor Anne Hidalgo and President Emmanuel Macron promised to swim in the river to show that it would be clean enough in time for the Games. In any event, it was Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, a keen political rival of the Parisian Mayor, who swam in the Seine on 13 July to prove its cleanliness. The Seine has been at the heart of Paris' bid to hold the Olympics; it has mostly used existing infrastructure to hold its events and swimming in the Seine is a return to old swimming patterns—the city held rowing, water polo and swimming events in the Seine during the 1904 Olympi.