Olympics pre-race triathlon event in Seine River canceled, here's why

Concerns over the water quality of Paris' Seine River have continued into the 2024 Olympics, with a pre-race triathlon event there canceled Sunday.

Organizers said they nixed the swimming leg of the triathlon familiarization scheduled for Sunday morning after a meeting about water quality among authorities tasked with carrying out water quality tests. That included representatives of World Triathlon, as well as city and regional authorities.

Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century in big part due to poor water quality. Organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the Seine for these Games, and the government has said the river would be clean enough to hold events, including the swimming portion of the triathlon and the marathon swimming event.

Daily water quality tests in early June indicated unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, followed by recent improvements. Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a famous dip in the river less than two weeks before Olympic events wer