The statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are repeated at the end of this article
In 100 days, the Paris Olympics will begin.
However, France, as the organizer, seems to have been out of state, and it was reported that the USB flash drive containing the security information of the Olympic Games was lost, and later it directly asked 45 countries for help because of the lack of security forces.
It wasn't until April 10 that it was announced that the traditional Olympic event, the triathlon, might be changed to two, and all this was because of the excessive E. coli in the Seine.
I still remember that on February 29, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly promised that he would swim in the Seine, and I don't know if this promise will be fulfilled.
01
The Thames brothers appear - the Seine
A few days ago, the Thames River was just complained by the athletes, and there was too much feces in the river that caused them to be infected with E. coli, and they vomited and diarrhea during the competition, which caused a large number of netizens to sigh.
At that time, some people thought of the Seine, although Paris is known as the romantic capital, but over the years it has been exposed to dirty mess one after another, and the blogger's big cousin Paris Travel directly did it.
In his description, the city center is full of poop smells, uh........ It can only be said that it is unimaginable.
The city center looks like this, and you can imagine what the Seine is like.
By 1923, the Seine had become stinking and full of garbage, and when it rained, the river was full of dead fish, and the Paris government banned citizens from swimming in the river.
However, the Seine is not a cat or a dog after all, it is still very special to the French people, so the government also thought about governing it during this period.
In 1990, the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, said they would act as soon as possible to clean up the river so that Parisians could swim happily in the river.
And he also said in public that he would swim the Seine in public witness three years later to prove the effectiveness of their governance, but in 95 people saw him become president, and did not wait for the Seine to become clear again.
In 2019, the former president who once inspired the clean-up of the Seine River ended his life, and the Seine River is still the same dead look.
The state of the Seine's water quality is not optimistic Source: BBC
It was not until the advent of the 2024 Olympics that new hope was given to the governance of the Seine.
02
Changing the triathlon to 2 events, please respect the athletes
According to the schedule, triathlons, marathon swimming and para triathlons will be held on the Seine.
Triathlon includes swimming, cycling and running, which means that even people with disabilities have to swim in the river, but you know how famous the Seine is.
Therefore, after the successful bid for the Olympic Games, the French government spent 1.4 billion yuan to completely renovate the Seine, and Macron promised again at the unveiling ceremony of the Olympic Village at the end of February that he would swim in the river.
Of course, he will not disclose the specific time, he said that he was afraid that too many people would watch, of course, we believe that the water is too dirty and he dare not go down.
This time it was quite loud, but the French were quickly slapped in the face.
On April 8, a French water charity complained that the water quality of the Seine River was simply worrying, and that the situation was still in this situation just 100 days before the Olympics, raising concerns about the health risks that athletes would face.
From September last year to March this year, the agency tested in one of the waters of the stage and found that the bacteria in it exceeded the standard and almost exploded, which belonged to E. coli and enterococci with the most.
This thing basically comes from stool, and too much contact with the human body can easily induce diseases.
Swimming in this kind of river is simply risking your life, so on April 10, Australian media reported that the organizers of the Olympic Games said that the triathlon event may be postponed, or the swimming event in it may be canceled.
Is it mandatory to participate in this Olympic Games? Please respect the physical and mental health of the athletes.
In order to avoid congestion, the Paris metro began to implement high tolls, and there was no air conditioning in the competition venue, so let's not say anything, the temperature in Paris can exceed 40 degrees Celsius in summer, so do you want to let the athletes challenge the limit of life in the boiling gold juice? Don't hesitate to cancel the swimming directly.
03
Death of the Tokyo Olympics
And when it comes to this, I have to say that the Tokyo Olympics that year, it was also a summer.
In July 2021, Broomfield, a runner from Norway, came to the triathlon in high spirits, but when he got into the water, he found that things were not as simple as he thought.
But he had no choice but to grit his teeth and continue to race, and I don't know what kind of perseverance he used to swim the whole way, and after reaching the finish line to win the championship, he immediately fell to the ground and vomited, and couldn't even walk, and finally let people push him away in a wheelchair.
And there are many people like him who are in this situation, and there is only one reason, the water quality of Tokyo Bay is so poor that it is not as clean as the Japanese say and can be drunk directly.
Afterwards, many people said that the water quality was yellow and poor, and it was simply fecal water.
Even the neighbor who had unknown competition quality couldn't stand it, and stabbed it directly in front of the people of the world, saying that the water stinked so much that it would kill people, and the athletes had to go down for half their lives.
Some of the smarter athletes quit the competition after learning that this was the case in Japan, after all, everything is a cloud in front of life.
In the face of such a straightforward humiliation, how could the Japanese stand it and immediately began to quibble, and they really fooled a few wronged leaders to come forward.
It's just that the water temperature can reach 29°C and the humidity of 80°C directly bring out the dirty and smelly characteristics of the water in Tokyo Bay to the maximum, so Broomfield said bitterly in his speech that he never expected the conditions to be so difficult.
The same dirty mess, coupled with the high temperature peculiar to France, I believe that the taste of the Seine will be even more sour by then.
After decades of governance, billions of euros have been invested, why is the Seine still so unproductive?
04
Why has there been little progress in the governance of the Seine
It all boils down to the fact that Paris's sewerage network is in disrepair, and rainwater overflows the pipes and backs up into the river.
So over the past 10 years, France has invested 1.4 billion euros to renovate these old drainage facilities to improve the water quality of the Seine.
In fact, much earlier, the French began a plan to clean up the Seine, which included the renewal of thousands of underground pipelines, water storage towers and pumping stations.
One of the most notable projects is the excavation of a large underground water storage facility in the bustling city, with a capacity equivalent to 20 full-size swimming pools, designed to store runoff during showers and prevent rainwater from flooding the Seine and polluting the Seine.
At the same time, special pipeline improvement teams have been set up in six districts outside Paris to convince 20,000 households who had previously discharged their sewage directly into the Seine or Marne to renovate their sewers and connect them to the designed sewers.
The team provided 6,000 euros per household with subsidies and renovation costs, but as of March this year, only half of the households had received subsidies and renovations, and some residents still failed to cooperate.
The objects of renovation are not only houses, but also boats. In the upper reaches of the Seine, about 170 boats once discharged wastewater directly into the river almost without exception.
But in 2018, Paris officials required all ships to simply connect to the city's sewerage network, and the port authority installed the necessary equipment in ports that previously lacked sewerage connections and pumping stations. By now, although some time has passed, less than half of the ships have completed the reconnect.
Because the cost of renovation is too high, the government simply does not give enough money.
Adding up to all these things, it is no wonder that there has not been much progress in river water management.
And the person in charge of the Olympics also said that even if this plan is completed, they are not fully sure that the water quality here will not affect the competition.
Obviously, they still have a long way to go in terms of environmental governance, but they are also at home at home, which has to be accelerated to some extent, and it is unimaginable that in 2024, the French will still smell the toilet and go shopping.
Reference Sources:
Nine News France spent a lot of money to clean the Seine for the Olympics, and in order to highlight the results, Macron or went down to swim in the river
The Paper promises to transform into an Olympic legacy, but can the Seine really swim?
Sports Industry Ecosystem Behind the romantic Olympics on the Seine, there is a "big pit" worth 11 billion
Observer.com The Seine water quality was not up to standard, and the triathlon test swimming competition at the Paris Olympics was cancelled