By Pete Colan
Answer: You make athletes (who place a high value their health) swim in the polluted Seine River.
Unlike many competitions of the past, I have watched very little of the Olympics this year because I will not reward broadcasting stations with my viewership that would in any way count in their ratings. This is my boycott. I am not boycotting the athletes — they deserve their places there, competing against fellow international athletes (of the same gender, where appropriate), and to show their talent on the world stage. I am boycotting NBC and any other live media outlet that can report back to the IOC how many people are watching. Athletes like those fighting for their medals at the Olympics would do so without any media coverage at all, because that’s just who true athletes are. They are not actors that feed on a fawning audience.
I am an athlete myself, having competed in mountain bike racing for several years before moving on to triathlon. I completed a half Ironman a few years ago before other health issues have affected my endurance, but I still participate in all the disciplines of the sport.
Mountain biking and triathlon are private sports; once you leave the start line, there’s usually nobody out there cheering your every move as in baseball or football. Therefore, neither are really spectator sports.
Which brings me to the triathlon competition in Paris. Why in the bloody hell did they decide swimming in the Seine was a good idea? France spent $1.5 billion in an attempt to clean up this sewer just so a few athletes could swim in it, and they failed. The Seine is quite literally a sewer. You can’t clean up a sewer. If they wanted to improve the water quality with $1.5 billion invested, fine. But leave the Olympic athletes out of it.
“Elevated levels of bacteria in the river pushed the men’s race originally planned for Tuesday to Wednesday, when the women’s competition had been scheduled. Test events meant to allow the athletes to familiarize themselves with the course had already been canceled for the same reason on Sunday and Monday.”
“Paris experienced a downpour during Friday’s opening ceremony, and rain continued for most of the day Saturday, which directly affected the water quality in the Seine.”
“The problem is always worse when there’s a heavy rainfall, because it kind of overwhelms the pipes and you also get all the runoff from the street. All that lands in the Seine,” explained Dr. Nicole Iovine, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Florida. “They’ve done a lot to try to improve the quality of the water. But the truth is you’re at the mercy of Mother Nature.”
Claire Michel of Belgium competed in the women’s triathlon Wednesday, fell ill, and was hospitalized on Sunday. She was forced to withdraw. Adrien Briffod of Switzerland, who also competed in the Seine on Wednesday, fell ill with a stomach infection. Norwegian triathlete Vetle Bergsvik Thorn and Canadian triathlete Tyler Mislawchuk also became sick after competing in the men’s triathlon.
Belgian Triathlete Jolien Vermeylen said she drank a lot of water from the Seine while swimming in it, so she’d have to wait and see whether it made her sick. She said that when swimming under a bridge in the river she ‘felt and saw things that we shouldn’t think about too much’. “The Seine has been dirty for a hundred years, so they can’t say that the safety of the athletes is a priority. That’s bulls**t!” was her verdict of the water quality.
As a triathlete myself, I am sickened by the idea that Paris wanted to showcase their vain attempt to “clean up” the Seine to make it “safe” for swimming, at the risk of, and the expense of the health of triathletes, rather than choosing any number of nearby lakes to host this event. Perhaps French president Macron should have gotten a true taste of his own medicine before the opening of the Olympics, but alas… he did not.
“Emmanuel Macron still plans to swim in the River Seine as promised but “not necessarily” before the Paris Olympic Games which begin in a week, the Elysée presidential office said on Friday, July 19. The French president has insisted several times that he would dive into the capital’s river to highlight the possibility of swimming there again thanks to major cleaning work, and to reassure about the quality of the water. But Macron, 46, never set a date, and did not join French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo who both took a dip in the murky waters in the past week.”
(Translation: “took a dip” is not doing what they are asking athletes to do: swim 1.5 kilometers in a competitive situation where swimmers kick and slap each other, and inevitably drink a lot of water along the way.)
