‘Iconic location or not, safety is the priority’: World Aquatics will relocate races if standards aren’t met

World Aquatics declare contingency plans are in place for Olympics open water races to be held at the Seine river if French officials fail to meet standards and clean up the filthy river.

Organisers cancelled a pre-Olympics test swimming competition at the Seine river in August 2023 due to excessive pollution. Picture: Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Swimming’s world governing body is secretly preparing contingency plans to relocate the open water races at this year’s Paris Olympics away from the Seine if French officials fail to deliver on their promise to clean up the city’s filthy river.

French authorities are still insisting the men’s and women’s marathon swim races will proceed in the Seine, but senior World Aquatics officials have vowed they will move the events to an as yet undisclosed location if the river continues to show dangerous levels of bacteria and faeces.

“Rest assured that there will be no athletes swimming if those standards are not met,” World Aquatics chief executive Brent Nowicki told this masthead.

“We could be swimming alongside the Taj Mahal and we wouldn’t care, we want that water to be clean.

“The reputation of the sport is too risky, the reputation of health is too risky. We’ve got a lot of examples throughout the last 10 years of swimmers being contaminated in water and getting terribly sick.

“We don’t want to have to answer to a family as to why their medallist is in the hospital three days after the event.

“That’s a call we don’t want to take. So for us, iconic location or not, safety is the priority.”

World Aquatics chief executive Brent Nowicki declared that open water races at the Paris Olympics will be relocated from the Seine river if standards are not met. Picture: Supplied

World Aquatics’ first public confirmation that it is prepared to abandon the Seine for another location will infuriate and deeply embarrass the French, who have staked their national pride on the events going ahead in the city’s famous waterway.

Swimming has been banned in the Seine for over a century because the water is so polluted from industrial sewage and sanitary overflows which spill into the canals whenever there is heavy rain.

But ambitious French organisers vowed they would fix it, declaring that the regeneration of the Seine would be the ultimate legacy of hosting the Olympics.

They have already spent $2.4 billion of taxpayer money on upgrading the 19th Century sewage system, building an underground reservoir tank the size of 20 Olympic pools to store any rainwater.

The only problem is that it doesn’t seem to have worked, which spells trouble for the 10km open water races, which can take more than two hours to complete.

$2.4 billion of taxpayer money has been spent on building an underground reservoir tank the size of 20 Olympic pools to regenerate the Seine. Picture: Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP

A grand reopening was planned for last year with an open water test event but World Aquatics stepped in and cancelled it at the last minute because the water was still too toxic after a heavy downpour.

And more recently, a six-month study by the European arm of the water charity Surfrider found that the Seine still has dangerously high levels of E-coli and enterococci, which come from faeces and can cause serious infections that can lead to illness, diarrhoea and kidney failure.

“Above anything, athlete safety is our absolute priority,” Nowicki said.

“We showed last year that we’re not afraid to pull events and we will pull an event if it doesn’t meet our quality standards. There’s no question about it.

“We’ve got a great plan in place, but we will not cut corners. We will not sacrifice anything. If the standards aren’t met, the standards aren’t met, they’re non-negotiable standards.

“I’m not going to be the guy who is showing up to a hospital bed explaining why we cut corners and their son or daughter is sick.

“If you get bit by a bug in the water, you’re going to get an infection. We can’t help that. It’s the risk of the sport. But the standards will be tested according to our standards.”

Despite the pledge to bail on the Seine if it’s too foul, World Aquatics still hopes the river will be safe enough for open water swimmers and triathlon to take a dip.

(FILES) This handout illustration released by Paris 2024 Olympic Committee shows plans for the opening ceremony to take part on the River Seine. Picture: Florian Hulleu / Paris 2024 / AFP

While admitting contingencies are being made, officials are also still in regular contact with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and French organisers looking at how things can go ahead as planned.

“We feel that things are trending in the right direction,” Nowicki said.

“We understand the risks associated with it, but we’re not going to put our athletes lives and health to hold an event at an iconic location.

“We hope that with all that preparation, we have a great event. We’re obviously working on different variants of the plans.

“We have the ability to move it backwards, there’s a sort of flexible schedule in place for rain delays, if you will, contamination delays.

“So we’ll work off that and we’ll continue to work towards an alternative plan C, if need be.”