Rogue swimmers reject Seine pollution fears as Olympic swimmers
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While the 2024 Olympics will stage events in the Seine river from the ornate Alexandre III bridge, a proud declaration of the waterway’s environmental renewal, many swimmers in the capital are already defying decades-long bans to take the plunge.
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Fears over pollution and safety led to a ban on swimming in the Seine and the Paris canals in 1923, though application of the rules has been relaxed in recent years.
One group of pioneers calls itself “Les Ourcq Polaires” — a pun invoking polar bears and the name of the canal that is a favourite swimming site, running northeast out of the capital.
In five years, none of their swimmers have been fined, said one member, Laurent Sitbon, and they have been dragged out of the water by police only once.
Thirty years ago, Jacques Chirac, Paris mayor at the time, boasted that the Seine was becoming a “clean river” and that he would soon go for a swim — though he never did.
But the 2024 Olympic Games organisers plan to hold the triathlon and the open-water swimming events in the Seine, with French authorities investing 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to clean up the river.
Already pools have been roped off in the Ourcq canal for the annual Paris Plages summer events in recent years, and permanent venues for the general public are scheduled to open in the region by 2025.
On the first Sunday in July, the Polaires organised a dip in the Seine. Swimmers lined the railing on a barge moored at the Ile-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, where the Paralympic athlete’s village is being built.
“I can’t wait to swim in the Seine! It’s something else than a swimming pool,” said one swimmer, Celine Debunne.
‘We’ve paved the way’
At 8 pm, with little traffic on the river, around 20 people took to the water for a one-hour outing, covering two kilometres in warm water.
At 25 degrees Celsius (77…
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