Triathlon great Mark Allen has spoken of his “huge disappointment” after the men’s individual Olympic Games race at Paris 2024 was postponed early on Tuesday.
Despite a much-vaunted $1.5billion cleanup operation to make the iconic River Seine swimmable for the first time in a century, the water quality was too poor to allow the big race to go ahead as officials took the grim decision at around 0400 local time.
Now the men will try again on Wednesday (1045 local time), immediately following the women’s individual event (0800 local time). The original reserve day had been Friday, but the weather forecast for Paris (heavy rain can result in untreated sewage being washed into the river) suggests that may be problematic too.
To add to those concerns, Paris has a thunderstorm alert for today (Tuesday), likely to arrive in the afternoon per forecasters. It all adds up to a gloomy picture, one which could yet see races being downgraded to duathlon format with no swim (instead it would be run/bike/run).
Why no proper Plan B for triathlon?
Six-time IRONMAN World Champion Allen is hugely respected for his measured analysis off the course, just as he once was for his racing prowess on it. But even he is frustrated by what is unfolding, in particular the lack of a Plan B which would ensure the integrity of the swim/bike/run format being preserved.
Speaking from the French capital, he told TRI247: “An alternate venue was put in place to be able to hold the marathon swim events if the water quality doesn’t co-operate in the Seine. Those will take place at the rowing and canoeing venue. Why was this not Plan B for triathlons as well?
“It’s about 32km from the transition area outside the city center. They could have swum there, then biked into town and ridden a lap on the Champs Élysée just like the Tour de France, then done the run as planned. It’s a huge disappointment that the solution for poor water quality is to completely change the sport and make it a duathlon.
“I know tomorrow is another day and that both the men’s and the women’s individual events might still take place. But ultimately from my perspective there is a better solution than what is presently in place.”
Allen had previously spoken in depth to TRI247 in recent weeks about the possibility of events unfolding just as they now are. He was incredulous at that stage that the sport could be in this position.
Triathlon the big loser if races are duathlons
Speaking about the duathlon fears, he reasoned: “The sport will look like a second-rate event, even though the switch from triathlon to duathlon would be of no fault of the sport.
“Think of it this way. What other sport in the Olympics would tolerate the entire format of it being changed at 3:00am the day of competition? None. Downhill skiing would never make a competitor add in a slalom to contest for the downhill gold because on the day of competition the course was icy!”
Back then of course we still had significant hope that the water quality in Paris would improve sufficiently to allow swims to go ahead – we still had time. That precious time is now fast running out.
