Olympic athletes sickened by dirty Seine: expected blunder by French organisation
Belgian triathlete Claire Michel fell ill on Sunday morning and was admitted to the Olympic village outpatient clinic for a day. She was infected with E.coli bacteria and she contracted the infection through the dirty water of the Seine in which she, like her competitors, had to complete the swimming part of the individual Olympic triathlon.
Due to Michel's infection, the Belgian Hammers, the mixed relays team, had to forfeit the relay race.
The E.coli bacteria can cause gastrointestinal problems, and Claire Michel, by the way, turns out to be not the only athlete who fell ill after having to swim in the Seine.
Ever since it was announced that the triathlon swimming at these Games would take place in the Seine, a lot of delegations expressed their reservations. And those suspicions proved justified as the Olympic triathlon even had to be postponed by a day because the water quality of the Seine turned out to be not good. "A circus, with athletes as puppets," Marten Van Riel called it.
From 2025, Parisians should be able to swim in the Seine again, at some 30 sites in Île-de-France. But with this water quality, that looks set to be a particularly unhealthy activity.
(SR for Tagtik/Picture by Rz98 via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
