‘I saw things I don’t want to think about’: Disgusted triathlete opens up on what it was REALLY like to swim in the Seine
- A disgusted triathlete has revealed what it’s like to swim in the River Seine
- She called it ‘nonsense’ that leaders cared about athletes after a £1.2 billion clean-up
- The triathlons continued after a postponement with a mixed relay on August 5
A shocked triathlete has spoken out about the disgusting experience of swimming in the River Seine, criticising organisers for protecting Olympic competitors.
Belgian star Jolien Vermeylen was part of the team that swam 1.5 kilometres in the Seine on Wednesday, while Britain’s Beth Potter took home a bronze medal.
The women’s triathlon was postponed on Tuesday after tests showed the Seine was not clean enough to swim in.
Around £1.2 billion has been spent cleaning up a river that has been off-limits to swimming for 100 years, and in June, ten times the legal limit for E.coli was found.
“When I was under the bridge, I felt and saw things that we shouldn’t think too much about,” Vermeylen told VTM.
Jolien Vermeylen claimed she ‘felt and saw things’ she didn’t want to think about in the Seine
The triathlete claimed it was ‘nonsense’ that athlete safety was a priority as athletes were forced to swim in the river despite it having been banned for 100 years
‘The Seine has been dirty for a hundred years, so they can’t say that the safety of the athletes is a priority. That’s nonsense!’
A statement from Paris 2024 and World Triathlon said: “Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that the health of the athletes is their priority.”
Vermeylen, who came 24th, added: ‘I drank a lot of water, so we’ll know tomorrow whether I’m sick or not. Of course it doesn’t taste like Coca-Cola or Sprite.
“If the race hadn’t happened, it would have been a disgrace for the organization, for Paris, for France. It was now or never, and they couldn’t cancel the race altogether.
‘Now they just have to hope that there are not too many sick athletes. I took probiotics, I drank my Yakult, that was all I could do.
‘I had the idea of not drinking water, but yeah, that failed. Just like I had the idea of not falling, but that also failed.’
There were fears that the Olympic presidents would have to cancel the swimming portion of the triathlon and convert it into a duathlon.
Triathlon training in the Seine was cancelled on Sunday and Monday, leaving athletes unsure whether the swim would go ahead.
Beth Potter takes bronze in women’s triathlon after training sessions were halted
Around £1.2 billion was spent restoring the river, but multiple tests showed it was unclean
Alex Yee won one of two gold medals for Team GB on Wednesday with a victory in the final minutes of the triathlon
A French water charity found ‘alarming’ levels of bacteria in all but one of 14 samples taken from the Seine in the six months to April
Swimming in the Seine, which runs through Paris, has been prohibited since 1923. In 1990, Jacques Chirac, then mayor of the city, declared that he would clean the river enough to allow entry, but he failed to do so.
Parisians had threatened to defecate in the river in the run-up to the Olympics, in protest at the seemingly ineffective spending to clean up the river.
Meanwhile, the director general of Paris 2024 refused to apologise to the participants when asked by Mail Sport whether he would do so.
“We have to wait,” said Etienne Thobois. “We don’t do fictional scenarios. We have great respect for the athletes. They are the heart of the Games. We have done everything we could in relation to the international federations and government bodies to achieve the goal of swimming in the Seine, which will be a fantastic legacy.”
While Potter won bronze in the women’s triathlon, Alex Yee took gold in the men’s.
Yee regained some extra energy in the final minutes of the race by overtaking the exhausted Hayden Wilde and finished six seconds ahead of the New Zealand athlete.
The mixed triathlon relay will take place on August 5.