Today’s women’s and men’s races (Wednesday July 31) at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will go ahead as triathlons after the water in the River Seine was deemed safe enough to allow the swims to take place as planned.
The men’s race had originally been scheduled to take place on Tuesday (July 30) but was postponed by just over 24 hours because the water quality in the Seine didn’t meet the required standards.
Both the pollution levels and the speed of the current are the key markers which determine whether the athletes are allowed to swim.
And thankfully a continued dry spell has led to the readings dropping to acceptable levels, with organisers confirming just before 4am local time today (31 July) that both events have been given the green light.
The official statement read: “Following a meeting on water quality held on 31 July at 3.30am attended by Paris 2024, representatives of World Triathlon and their Technical and Medical Delegates, Météo France, the City of Paris and the Prefecture of the Île-de-France Region involved in carrying out water quality tests, the stakeholders involved have confirmed that the women’s and the men’s triathlons will go ahead as planned on 31 July at 8am and 10.45am respectively.
“The results of the latest water analyses, received at 3.20am, have been assessed as compliant by World Triathlon allowing for the triathlon competitions to take place.”
The women will now race first at 08:00 CET, which is 07:00 in the UK, 02:00 on the East Coast and 23:00 on Tuesday July 30 on the West Coast. The men’s race will follow straight after at 10:45 local time.
It also means the nightmare scenario of the triathlons being downgraded to duathlons on the last available reserve day on Friday 2 August has now been avoided.
What’s changed in 24 hours?
The three triathlon races at the Olympics have been shrouded in uncertainty ever since last August’s Paris Test Event saw the Mixed Team Relay downgraded to a duathlon format (run / bike / run) because of the water quality. The same happened to races at the Paralympics Test Event.
For the last few months regular water tests have produced mixed results, underlined in the last few days when the two planned swim familiarisation sessions on Sunday and Monday were both cancelled because the readings were over the allowed limits.
That followed heavy rain in Paris for the opening ceremony on Friday and then the first day of competition proper on Saturday which not only increased pollution but also the speed of the current.
Organisers had pinned their hopes on improved weather since Saturday but that didn’t have the desired effect for Tuesday’s first race – but has done now (latest Paris weather forecast updates are here).
A massive €1.4bn (£1.18bn or $1.5bn) has been spent on cleaning up the iconic Seine in the hope of making it swimmable for the general public for the first time in a century.
![Paris triathlon river seine sunny [Photo credit: World Triathlon]](https://www.tri247.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Paris-triathlon-river-seine-sunny.jpg)
But unlike the open water swimming events there was no Plan C of an alternative venue for triathlon, instead it would have reverted to duathlon status.
What’s in store?
The women are off first at 08:00 local time and we’ve got both the full start list and the pontoon draw for when they dive off the floating Alexandre III pontoon plus our podium predictions.
The big battle is expected to be between Great Britain’s reigning World Champion Beth Potter and home favourite Cassandre Beaugrand.
Potter won the Test Event here in Paris last year but her French rival has struck back in 2024 and won the last two races between them.
But reigning champion Flora Duffy is back from injury and there are a whole host of other medal contenders.
The men will follow at 10:45 and we’ve again got the start list, pontoon draw and podium predictions.
Great Britain’s Alex Yee and New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde are the two big favourites. They took second and third respectively behind Kristian Blummenfelt in Tokyo, with the Norwegian back to defend his title.
A strong French contingent will look to delight the home fans while American Morgan Pearson and Australia’s Matt Hauser are others with realistic medal claims.
