The triathlon Paris movie is starting to feel a bit like the 90’s blockbuster comedy hit ‘Groundhog’s Day’, were a set of 24-hour events repeat themselves to exhaustion for the lead protagonist, played by Bill Murray. Para competitors, officials and spectators may not be able to shake that gloomy feeling either, as postponements and statements from World Triathlon keep popping up, even with the change of the calendar month. The latest moved the competition from 1 Sunday to 2 Monday.

Of 11 days of events and training scheduled in the river during the Olympics, only five got the green light and the trend does not seem near to change at this point, despite a 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) investment to improve the Paris sewerage and water treatment system.

"The latest analysis shows a deterioration in the water quality of the Seine following heavy rainfall over the past two days," the organisers said. "It was decided to schedule the 11 medal sessions of the Para triathlon on September 2," they added, following a meeting between World Triathlon, the Paris 2024 organisers, and the relevant French authorities. “This is subject to the forthcoming water tests complying with the established World Triathlon thresholds for swimming,” the brief statement detailed.

Ever since Paris 2024 organisers prioritised promoting iconic sites over logistical issues or even athlete’s wellbeing, according to detractors, the Seine has been a constant headache, dogged by pollution concerns, notably for its levels of enterococci and E.coli bacteria.

“Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that their priority is the health of the athletes and with these conditions, the Para triathlon events cannot take place today,” the statement concluded.

Well over a month ago, the issue also caused disruption to the Olympics triathlon and open-water swimming events, with several practice sessions being cancelled due to high levels of pollution caused by heavy rainfall. Despite some local pushback and a few complaints from the athletes themselves, however, all triathlon events were finally held with the swimming leg in the Seine during the Olympics.

Para triathlon joined the Paralympic Games family in Rio 2016 Rio Games. The three events in Para triathlon are a 750-metre swim, 20-kilometre cycle and a 5-kilometre run. As in the Olympic version of the sport, time spent in transition between swimming, cycling, and running is included in the total event time.

There are five classifications for both men and women.  People with various types of impairments take part in the sport, including wheelchair users, amputees, and visually impaired athletes. They are classified according to their capabilities and may use adapted equipment to assist their movement – for example, paraplegic competitors or wheelchair users may use a manual bicycle called a handcycle, turning the pedals with their hands, for the cycling stage, and compete in the race in a wheelchair.

When Paris was awarded the 2024 Games, officials made it a point of emphasis to highlight the French Capital’s iconic sites and transform some of its less appealing aspects. Making the Seine a swimmable (or bathable, as the preferred phrasing goes) river was one of the priorities as City Hall hopes both Games leave a lasting legacy, an imprint far beyond the winners and losers and the rankings atop the medal table.

“We want Parisians to enjoy their river again like in the past and be able to bathe and swim in a natural milieu, at least in defined and controlled areas where currents do not pose a threat,” deputy mayor Antoine Guillou expressed during the Olympics. “With the effect of climate change, summers are getting much hotter and we have suffered severe canicules recently. People are going to need to find refuges of freshness that provide relief. And hopefully, the Seine can become that.”

Due to an exceptionally wet spring and early summer, the Seine had consistently failed water quality tests until early July as levels of E. coli bacteria, an indicator of faecal matter, were more than 10 times the permitted limit. Even as the water quality has improved and no major issues arose during the Olympics, some athletes did experience some sort of sickness after the races.