The Belgian triathlon team has forfeited the mixed triathlon finals scheduled for Monday due to an athlete, Claire Michel, being hospitalized after swimming in the Seine River, the country’s Olympic Committee has announced.
The sporting body took jabs at the Paris Olympics organizers, expressing hopes “that lessons will be learned for future triathlon competitions,” and that there will be no more “uncertainty” for athletes and support personnel.
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“The BOIC and Belgian Triathlon must unfortunately announce that the ‘Belgian Hammers’ will not be starting the mixed relay at the Paris Olympic Games tomorrow. The decision, like this communication, was taken in consultation with the athletes and their entourage,” the committee said in a statement.
“Claire Michel, a member of the relay, is unfortunately ill and must withdraw from the competition,” it added.
While the committee did not elaborate, local media reports have suggested that Michel, who has been hospitalized for four days already, was diagnosed with an E.coli bacterial infection. While the athlete apparently fell ill shortly after finishing 38th in the women’s triathlon competition on Wednesday, it has not been positively established that she contracted the bacteria in the murky waters of the Seine.
The development comes after the Swiss triathlon team said it had to replace triathlete Adrien Briffod with Simon Westermann after the former contracted a gastrointestinal infection. The team noted it was still unclear whether Briffod’s illness was related to the Seine.
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The Belgian team has been highly critical of the condition of the Seine, with multiple athletes publicly speaking of their experience. “While swimming under the bridge, I felt and saw things that we shouldn’t think about too much,” Jolien Vermeylen, who finished 24th in Wednesday’s event, said, adding that the waters did not exactly taste like “Coca-Cola or Sprite.”
“The Seine has been dirty for a hundred years, so they can’t say the safety of the athletes is a priority,” she claimed.
The water condition of the highly-polluted river had been a source of widespread concern long before the Games. A $1.5 billion project aimed at cleaning up the Seine yielded mixed results at best and was marred by various mishaps, including the release of a large quantity of sewage into the river shortly before the Olympics.
The French authorities, however, insisted on holding open-water competitions on the Seine, with several senior officials, including French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, taking a swim in the river to demonstrate that it is safe. President Emmanuel Macron, who had also made a half-hearted pledge to take a dip, however, ultimately abstained from doing so.