Right here’s What a Microbiologist Thinks of the Seine Olympic Swimming Scenario

Within the months main as much as the Paris Video games, one of many largest questions wasn’t solely which athletes can be competing, however whether or not the Seine river would find yourself being secure sufficient to host them for a number of the swimming occasions.

Because the Video games progressed, hypothesis solely intensified. Upfront of the lads’s and ladies’s particular person triathlons on July 31, the swimming parts of observe periods had been canceled on account of water high quality issues, and when the occasions lastly did happen on July 31, athletes had been…lower than thrilled by the situations. Then, information broke over the weekend that a number of opponents had fallen sick after swimming within the Seine.

On August 4, Belgium even pulled out of the mixed-relay occasion scheduled for the following day after 35-year-old Claire Michel got here down with what the Belgian publication De Standaard reported was an E. coli an infection. Whereas it’s not clear if her sickness is linked to any of the opposite circumstances (and if any of them had been attributable to swimming in soiled water), the event underscores the protection issues athletes and public well being consultants have voiced ever because it was introduced that some Olympic occasions can be held within the iconic Paris waterway.

“Swimming’s been banned in that river for a couple of hundred years as a result of it has, notoriously, been soiled,” Invoice Sullivan, PhD, a microbiologist and professor on the Indiana College Faculty of Drugs, tells SELF. “There’s plenty of sewage that creeps into the river. And there’s plenty of erosion that happens with the soil washing potential animal feces into the water as properly.” Mixed, these two components could make for lots of nasties—like E. coli, the parasites Cryptosporidium and Giardia, and an entire slew of different bugs, based on Dr. Sullivan.

And whilst you may assume that the chance decreases after a downpour—contemporary water is sweet, proper?!—the other is definitely true, based on Dr. Sullivan. Heavy rain is a very huge danger issue, he says, particularly in outdated cities like Paris which have extra antiquated sewer techniques, as a result of the ensuing flooding washes all of the waste on land into the river. With that in thoughts, it’s price noting that rain fell within the days previous the triathlons, even on the opening ceremony.

Nevertheless, athletes had been capable of swim within the Seine after last-minute check outcomes had been deemed “compliant” by World Triathlon, the game’s governing physique, based on NBC. Then the mixed-relay occasion scheduled for August 5 went forward as deliberate when officers—together with representatives for World Triathlon and the Worldwide Olympic Committee—met over the weekend to evaluation the newest water high quality checks, which confirmed the micro organism rely to be inside the crucial limits, because the Related Press reported.

However even a stellar check end result isn’t a conclusive assure of swimming security: Assessments actually solely goal sure species of fecal micro organism, successfully utilizing E. coli as a proxy for different bugs, Dr. Sullivan says. Beneath most circumstances, that’s “in all probability okay, nevertheless it’s not a 100% assurance that the water is freed from a few of these different pathogens as properly.” Total, he says, the entire swimming state of affairs makes him “fairly nervous.”