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They didn't not fail. They have alternatives ready. And second, the goal was not only to clean water, but to make it sustainable long term. That's a lot of work on the foundations. It is foreseen to end in 2025, and I'm happy they did it. For these games, they said beforehand, it's only possible if it doesn't rain much. No luck. But I'm happy they took on this endeavour.

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The organizers absolutely failed. Practice swim sessions already had to be cancelled. Their "alternative" is to postpone the events to another day and there's no guarantee that the Seine will meet water quality requirements. The other "alternative" they mentioned is to cancel the swim and only do the run and bike portions. That would be completely stupid and turn it into a different sport (duathlon rather than triathlon).

Improving long term water quality is a nice goal but has nothing to do with the Olympics. Let's not confuse the issue and make excuses for laziness and incompetence. Competent organizers would have had a backup alternate venue lined up years in advance. No one should be happy about this failure.

I was in Paris a few weeks ago after days of no rain and stood watching the river from a bridge. It looked absolutely filthy - very grubby, with the occasional piece of rubbish floating by (pretty much what you would expect a river in a city to look like). And that's before adding large amounts of rain (which must increase sewage and farm waste flow into the river substantially). I suspect the river may one day be clean, but I think there's a lot of work needed upstream before it's ever going to be in a suitable, safe state to ingest while swimming.

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