Organisers have stopped short of apologising to athletes and spectators, after they were forced to postpone the Olympic men's triathlon, due to the poor water qualify of the River Seine in Paris.
The iconic waterway was scheduled to host the opening leg of the swim-bike-run event on Tuesday evening (NZ time), but competitors awoke early to be informed of the delay, after it was deemed unfit to swim.
Kiwis Hayden Wilde and Dylan McCullough were among those sent back to bed for a sleep-in, with Wilde considered among the medal favourites, after taking bronze at Tokyo three years ago.
Called to task the daily media briefing, Games administrators were adamant the race would take place eventually — it has been rescheduled after the women's contest on Wednesday — and the improvements made to the Seine's notoriously bad water quality would stand as a legacy of these Olympics.
The men's Olympic race was postponed due to poor water quality in the Seine River. (Source: 1News)
"There have been significant improvements regarding the Seine, let's be very clear about that," insisted IOC sports director Kit McConnell. "We can't control the weather... the weather did have a significant impact and has been the cause of the readings we had today.
"Equally, you've seen in the build-up period that we had a number of days of excellent conditions."
Billions of dollars have been spent trying to clean up the river, with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo taking a much-publicised dip to allay any fears over athletes' health. Those efforts have been undone by rain through the opening days of these Games and scheduled training days have had to be cancelled in the lead-up to the triathlons, after the weather stirred up troubled waters.
Paris 2024 sports competition director Aurelie Merle is adamant that hard work will pay off.
"Unfortunately, there have been unfortunate meteorological events outside of our control," she said. "Otherwise, I think the project is still very strong and the impacts on the quality are a legacy we can leave to the Parisians.
"I think we all feel extremely proud of what has been done so far.
Global warming
Merle has not ruled out reducing the race to a bike-run duathlon, if conditions do not improve, but is confident it will not come to that, as weather improves over coming days.
"We're living in the 21st century and unfortunately there are far more meteorological events that are beyond the control of organisers," she said. "We've seen triathlon competitions move to duathlon, because it's complex.
"We've seen we go from heavy rain to extreme heat like today in a very few days, so it's to control the quality of a river."
International Triathlon Union president Marisol Casado has blamed global warming.
"In the last five years especially, unfortunately, we've had to change to duathlon before cancelling events," she said. "If we cancel the event, there is no medals, no prizemoney in our organisations et etc.
"In some cases, we have waves that are too high, in another moment we have electrical storm just half an hour before the race or something like that. We can do our competition, because our athletes really want to compete and of course they want to win.
"I don't think it's unfair, it's just another situation of the competition."
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