As Paris Olympic organizers scramble to ensure the cleanliness of the Seine River ahead of the start of the Summer Games later this month, they are faced with another challenge related to the famous waterway: fast flow speeds at the opening ceremony.
The Seine was measured on Wednesday at 500 cubic meters per second, above the maximum acceptable flow of 450 cubic m/s set by the French Ministry of Sport. Rainy weather last month led to flow rates at over 670 cubic m/s, forcing the postponement of an opening ceremony rehearsal from June 24 to July 16. The normal flow rate is around 100 to 150 cubic m/s in the summertime.
Thierry Reboul, Paris 2024’s director of ceremonies, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the current conditions “pose problems for boat speed and maneuverability.”
“What we need to avoid is [the Seine] going above 500 cubic m/s, [because] boats are no longer going at 9 km/h but at 12 km/h,” Reboul said.
If the flow rate is between 300 and 500 cubic m/s, the Paris Olympic opening ceremony on July 26 will have to be adapted, with tall boats likely the first to be removed from the parade between the Austerlitz and Iena bridges. The event is expected to draw more than 200,000 spectators in stands along the banks of the Seine.
Meanwhile, pollution levels in the Seine continue to improve, but they are far from perfect despite a $1.5 billion cleanup effort. Paris city hall said that the water qualify met the required standard in most of the past 12 days — “11 days of 10 days,” according to Pierre Rabadan. Earlier this month, test results revealed E. coli bacteria to be below the allowable limits on six of the nine days between June 24 and July 2.
French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera took a dip in the Seine on Saturday along with para triathlete Alexis Hanquinquant. Check out how fast the river is flowing in the river below:
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo was supposed to swim in the river last month, but she postponed her swim to July 17. French president Emmanuel Macron also committed to take a dip in the Seine. Swimming in the river has been banned for over a century since 1923, but it is slated to reopen to the public at certain sites beginning in 2025.
The forecast is mostly dry for the next two weeks leading up to the Paris Olympic opening ceremony. The swimming leg of the triathlon is set for July 30-31 in the Seine while open water swimming is slated to take place from August 8-9.
Was in Paris a few weeks back and could not believe how fast the river was moving. Wouldn’t want to be swimming against the current – if so, then open water race could take all day and all night!
Speed of the poop in it
Someone must have pressed the big flush.
The Paris Pact Initiative seems to be ignored by the named City’s country. How can this be? One would think that since the initiative started in 2003 France and Paris would have the pollution under control. Especially with the Olympics ahead. Pathetic!!
The “Paris Pact,” which is actually called the “Paris Agreement,” is designed to deal with climate change. The fact that their sewers empty into the river does not really impact climate change and so is not covered under the Paris Agreement.
France, like most of the world’s countries, is falling short of their climate goals (China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, is actually doing the best job of meeting its climate goals.)
It comes down to the way a country treats the environment. Air, land & water. Actually, the river water is easiest to clean up. Look at the rivers & lakes in MN and WI that cleaned up when septic systems were no longer allowed to flow into waterways and highway runoff has to now flow into retention ponds.
China is currently building 306 coal fired plants vs. 4 in the USA. I only hope China has good scrubbers.
Back to the Seine River.. with water speed and pollution issues, the open water events should be moved, with a decision now. Let the athletes absorb the change in venue, without a last second surprise.
They are? Pollution in China is way better compared to pre covid and there are a lot more electric vehicles on the street. It seems like China is noticeably addressing climate change, whereas other countries do not have as much changes.
Such a pity that the US wants to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs, they are so much more practical to the average customer compared to Teslas.
You realize US and UK emissions are way up from the era of apocalyptic smog in those countries to? China is the worlds top emitter by far and growing.
The planet is totally screwed as long as both the USA and China refuse to cooperate on the risks of the athropocene. Honestly most the blame there falls on the USA
This site https://ccpi.org/ has a German view on how countries are faring wrt climate change policy
From CCPI site: The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an instrument to enable transparency in national and international climate politics.
All this obsession over a polluted river.
Pathetic!
´murica
Still looks gross. And how does open water swimming work with a 12 km/h current? They could all just go tubing.
Still looks gross. And how does open water swimming work with a 12 km/h current?
Maybe a misunderstanding from my part, the current must currently be closer to 3 km/h (still high). Instead of going at 9 km/h the boats now go at 12km/h, the difference being the consequence of the stronger flow.
Google Earth gives a width of roughly 100m, wiki has a depth of 9.5m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine hence a flow of 500 m3 yields a speed slightly under 2km/h
Holy smokes that river is flowing fast. Swimming upstream going to be interesting (to say the least) at that flow.
Looks like they will swim downstream only https://www.nbcolympics.com/news/swimming-101-competition-venue-paris-olympics. If the flow remains as it is (unlikely if the weather forecast is correct) the 10K will morph into a 7K
The stubbornness of the French is nothing if not impressive