Paris Mayor, Olympic Executive Swim in Seine Before Opening Ceremony

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and Paris 2024 Organizing Committee President Tony Estanguet swam Wednesday in the Seine River, fulfilling a promise to show that the long-polluted waterway was clean enough to host swimming competitions during the 2024 Olympic Summer Games as well as part of the opening ceremony, now only nine days away.

Clad in a wetsuit and goggles, Hidalgo plunged into the river near the imposing-looking City Hall and the Notre Dame Cathedral. Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, joined her, along with swimmers from local swimming clubs. They swam down the river for about 100 meters, switching between crawl and breaststroke.

“The Seine is exquisite,” said Hidalgo from the water. After emerging, she continued to rave, “The water is very, very good. A little cool, but not so bad.’’ She also said today was “a dream” and a “testimony that we have achieved a lot of work,” referencing the city’s “swimming plan” that was launched in 2015.

During the Olympics, water will be tested at 3 a.m. daily to determine whether events can go ahead as planned. Daily water quality tests in early June indicated unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, followed by recent improvements. If results were not up to the standards, events could be delayed by a few days, organizers said.

The triathlon and marathon swimming events are scheduled to take place near the Alexander III bridge between July 30 and August 5. The contingency plan includes the marathon swimming competition relocating to the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in the greater Paris region, which already hosts rowing and canoeing competitions and can accommodate up to 15,000 spectators.

“I think it’s really important that we are able to swim in the Seine,” said U.S. para-triathlete Grace Norman at the Team USA Media Summit in mid-April. “It’s an iconic river and I trust that in a few months it’ll be clean enough for us to swim in it. It’s important for us to embody the Paris race, to swim in the river, bike through the city and run on the cobbles — it’ll just complete the entire course. Without it, I’ll be very sad.”

A $1.5 billion investment to improve the water quality has been one of the centerpieces of Paris organizers’ plan for a legacy after the Games. The Seine will see Olympic action regardless, however, as the Opening Ceremony is scheduled to float down the river on July 26.

“After twenty years of doing sports in the river, I find it admirable that we are trying to clean it up,” said Estanguet, who has three Olympic gold medals in canoeing.

Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century. Other politicians have promised to clean up the Seine. Jacques Chirac, the former French president, made a similar pledge in 1988 when he was Paris mayor, but it was never realized.

Originally planned for June, Hidalgo’s swim was postponed due to snap parliamentary elections in France. On the initial date, the hashtag ”jechiedanslaSeine” (“I’m pooping in the Seine”) trended on social media as some threatened to protest the Olympics by defecating upstream.