PARIS– After months of anticipation, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, will swim in the Sena River later on Wednesday, fulfilling a promise he made in January, nine days before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.
Swimming will take place along the stretch of river that passes through Imposing city hall and Notre Dame Cathedral as part of a broader effort to showcase improved river cleanliness. Joining her will be Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris 2024 Games, and Marc Guillaume, mayor of the Paris region.
The Summer Olympics will begin on July 26th with a luxurious outdoor ceremony this includes a parade of athletes on boats on the Seine.
Since 2015, organizers have invested heavily – $1.5 billion – to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and to ensure that Parisians have a cleaner river in the years after the Games. The plan included the construction of a gigantic underground water storage basin in central Paris, the renovation of sewage infrastructure and the modernization of wastewater treatment plants.
Despite being a recurring promise among politicians, swimming in the Seine has been banned for more than a century. Jacques Chirac, the former French president, made a similar promise in 1988 when he was mayor of Paris, but it never came to fruition.
Hidalgo will follow in the footsteps of the French Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castérawho swam in the Seine on Saturday wearing a full costume.
Originally planned for June, the Hidalgo swim was postponed due to early parliamentary elections in France. On the initial date, the hashtag “jechiedanslaSeine” (“I’m pooping in the Seine”) became a trend on social media, while some threatened to protest the Olympics by defecating upriver.
Concerns about the Seine’s flow and pollution levels persisted, prompting daily water quality tests carried out by the Eau de Paris monitoring group. Results in early June indicated unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, followed by recent improvements.
The Sena will host several open water swimming events during the Games, including the marathon swim at the Olympic Games and the swimming legs of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.
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