Belgian triathlete Jolien Vermeylen slammed the 2024 Paris Olympic Games organizers for making athletes compete in the highly polluted River Seine. Jolien finished 24th in the women’s event, which took place on Wednesday (July 31) after being postponed.

“I drank a lot of water, so we’ll know tomorrow if I’m sick or not,” the 30-year-old told TV channel VTM.

She continued: “It doesn’t taste like Coca-Cola or Sprite, of course. 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***!”

Jolien took precautions to avoid getting sick, but she admitted she took on quite a bit of water during the swim leg, Metro reported on Thursday (August 1).

She further revealed: “If the race hadn’t taken place, it would have been a disgrace for the organization, for Paris, for France.”

Olympic triathlete slams 2024 Paris organizers for the unsanitary conditions of the Seine River after participating in an event

Image credits: Ezra Shaw/Getty

The incident comes just moments after another athlete, Canadian star Tyler Mislawchuk, was seen vomiting profusely on the finish line after participating in the men’s edition of the triathlon.

Prior to the event, the River Seine had been the center of a governmental project that sought to make its waters “swimmable” by 2025, not only for athletes but for the public as well. 

The initiative involved multiple sanitization procedures and infrastructure rebuilding efforts with costs ascending upwards of $1.5 billion.

Image credits: Ezra Shaw/Getty

Despite the efforts, the measures have been deemed insufficient after its waters failed numerous tests checking for the presence of bacteria and other pollutants.

Heavy rainfall over the weekend worsened the quality of the stream, which forced the organizers of the event to postpone the race, originally set to take place on July 30, 2024.

“I took probiotics, I drank my Yakult, I couldn’t do more. I had the idea of ​​not drinking water, but yes, it failed,” explained Vermeylen, making a reference to a fermented milk drink that promotes gut health.

The river has been subjected to numerous sanitization procedures, but tests months prior to the Olympic opening ceremony deemed the amounts of bacteria in it to be “unacceptable”

Image credits: jolien_vermeylen

Swimming in the River Seine has been prohibited for more than a century due to the presence of sewage, debris, and bacteria like E. coli, leading to health concerns about swimmers accidentally drinking the water.

Leading to the Olympics, experts reported concentrations of bacteria at unacceptable levels up until June 2024, with data showing that E. coli presence in the stream exceeded sports federation standards tenfold.

The aforementioned pathogen is often related to fecal matter, which the athlete alluded to having encountered while participating in the race. “While swimming under the bridge, I felt and saw things that we shouldn’t think about too much,” she stated.

Image credits: jolien_vermeylen

Vermeylen criticized the organization for allowing the race to take place in such conditions, but she understood the complex position they found themselves in, unable to further reschedule the event after its first cancellation. 

“It was now or never, and they couldn’t cancel the race completely either. Now they just have to hope that there won’t be too many sick athletes,” she continued.

Vermeylen ended up in 24th place, with France’s Cassandre Beaugrand winning the gold medal in the women’s triathlon.

Viewers sympathized with the athlete’s concerns and took to the internet to express their distaste over the sanitary conditions of the event

Image credits: jolien_vermeylen

“Blame the Olympic committee who should have taken this into better consideration before awarding Paris the right to host. Too many under the table payments cause officials to look the other way and put people’s health at risk instead!” complained one reader.

“Rivers are sewers. Even with treatment plants for homes and businesses, runoff from streets and sidewalks goes directly there. Imagine the dog waste alone from Paris streets. This was a terrible idea,” stated another.

“Parts of the sewage system in Paris are hundreds of years old. To this day when toilets are flushed the contents go straight to the river. No treatment period,” said another, pointing to the rebuilding efforts that took place as part of the River Seine sanitization project.

“Fecalcoliform counts are high and the heavy rain dumped ‘floaters’ from the waste systems. Think of it as an obstacle course,” one viewer joked.

“A Canadian triathlete threw up 10 times on live TV after swimming in it,” mentioned another, pointing to an earlier incident involving a different athlete.

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“Absolutely disgusting!” viewers reacted in desbelief at the decision by the 2024 Paris Olympics to allow athletes to swim in the River Seine

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