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Olympics triathlon training session is cancelled AGAIN over health concerns due to pollution in the River Seine - as athletes face nervy wait to find out whether the event will go ahead
Triathletes - including GB's gold chasing Alex Yee - are set to go to bed on Monday night not knowing if their competition will take place in the morning.
Continued water quality issues in the Seine saw the men's practice swimming session, scheduled for Sunday, cancelled, and early on Monday, the women's test run was also called off.
Officials will make a call on whether the famous river, part of a £1bn clean-up, will be fit to enter at around 3.30am local time, four-and-a-half hours ahead of the planned 8am start.
Should bacteria levels remain unsafe, organisers have two options. They can drop the swimming and make the event a duathlon, or postpone it to a later date. August 2 has been pencilled in. The women's triathlon is due to take place on Wednesday.
Swimming in the Seine, which dissects the city, has been banned since 1923. In 1990, Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, famously declared that he would make it clean enough to enter, but failed in his mission.
A second swimming training session for the Olympic triathlon in Paris has been cancelled
There are fears the event may not go ahead due to the worrying levels of water quality
Meanwhile, the director general of Paris 2024 refused to apologise to competitors when asked by Mail Sport if he would do so.
‘We have to wait,’ Etienne Thobois said. ‘We don’t do fiction scenarios. We are very respectful of the athletes. They are the heart of the Games. We have done everything we could in relation with the international federations and public authorities to achieve the goal of swimming in the Seine which will be a fantastic legacy. We are still optimistic, we have a contingency plan, we hope when they wake up they will be able participate.’
When it was pointed out athletes going to bed tonight not knowing if they would be competing was fact and not fiction, Thobois responded: ‘We will wait until tomorrow.’
In a press conference, the 56-year-old had earlier said levels were ‘going down rapidly’. ‘The forecast is bright and shiny,’ he added. ‘We are confident we will be able to hold competition tomorrow and Wednesday and we still have a contingency plan for Friday just in case. As far as we can see we are still confident to hold it tomorrow.’
Earlier this month, following astonishing investment, current mayor Anne Hidalgo plunged in with a group of around 100 officials and swam around 100 metres.
However, the heavy rain which disrupted the opening ceremony has impacted on water quality levels, with the threat of pollution, in particular E.coli, a concern.
Such downfall is damaging given it can trigger problems with wastewater and water speed.
Over the weekend Tony Estanguet, the Paris 2024 chief, told a press conference he was 'very confident' that swimming in the Seine would take place.
The heavy rain which disrupted the opening ceremony has impacted on water quality levels
Lewisham's Yee, 26, won silver in Tokyo and gold in the mixed relay. He is considered a strong contender in France.
Following this morning's test results, a Paris 2024 spokesperson said: 'Given the weather forecast for the next 36 hours, Paris 2024 and World Triathlon are confident that water quality will return to below limits before the start for of the triathlon competitions on 30 July.
'As observed in July, with summer conditions (more sunshine, higher temperatures, prolonged absence of rain) water quality in the Seine has improved significantly.'