Victor Johansson, a Swede, was added to the list of Paris Olympic athletes who have withdrawn from competition due to problems with the water quality of the Seine River on Thursday.
Johansson withdrew from the men's 10-kilometer Olympic event on Friday after falling ill while swimming in the river during the Olympic competition, he told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
Sweden's Victor Johansson reacts after competing in a heat of the men's 1500-meter freestyle swimming event during the Paris Olympics. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP)
Johansson said swimming in the river didn't make her feel well from the start and she knows for a fact that others have gotten sick.
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Since the Paris Olympics began, bacteria levels in the river have fluctuated and affected certain events. Swimming events leading up to the triathlon events had to be cancelled due to bacteria levels, and the men's triathlon was delayed by a day for the same reason.
Florian Wellbrock from Germany swims in the Seine. (Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Johansson is not the first athlete to withdraw from competition in Paris over concerns about the river. Belgium withdrew its entire team from the mixed triathlon relay on Monday after Claire Michel of Belgium pulled out of the competition after feeling unwell. However, Michel later said blood tests showed it was a virus that made her sick and not the E. coli bacteria, which is said to be the biggest risk from swimming in the Seine.
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Belgian Jolien Vermeylen told VTM television she felt debris in the water during her 1,500-metre swim in the French river at the start of the women's triathlon on Wednesday.
Athletes dive into the River Seine at the start of the women's 10km marathon swimming final at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on the Alexandre III bridge in Paris. (Martin Office/Pool/AFP)
Some $1.5 billion was spent to upgrade the city's sewage systems for the Olympics, promising the world that the historically dirty and bacteria-filled river would be clean enough for residents to swim in.
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Under world triathlon rules, E. coli levels of up to 1,000 colony-forming units per 100 millilitres can be considered “good” and allow competition to go ahead. Daily analyses of the Seine water have been carried out during the Olympics.
Johansson, 25, is competing in the Paris Olympics for the first time. In 2019, he won gold in the men's 1500-meter freestyle event representing Sweden at the 2019 Summer Universiade in Naples, Italy.
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