Poor water quality forced the postponement of the men’s triathlon. Will Episcopal’s Ivan Puskovitch get to swim the Seine?

Puskovitch is scheduled to compete in the men's marathon swimming on Aug. 10. But there are doubts that the river will be safe enough to swim.

by Mike Sielski | Columnist

Published July 30, 2024, 7:15 a.m. ET

PARIS — In the wake of a rainstorm Friday that dampened the Olympics’ opening ceremony and deteriorated the Seine River’s water quality, Olympic organizers postponed the men’s triathlon on Tuesday, raising doubts about when and whether the outdoor swimming events at the Games will be contested.

The triathlon was scheduled to go off at 8 a.m. Paris time. But 4½ hours earlier, after testing the Seine’s water, representatives from the International Olympic Committee, World Triathlon, and the City of Paris, among other determining bodies, decided early that the race needed to be pushed back to 10:45 a.m. Wednesday. The women’s triathlon remains scheduled for 8 a.m. Wednesday. Paris is six hours ahead of Philadelphia.

Both of those competition dates, however, “are subject to the forthcoming water tests complying with the established World Triathlon thresholds for swimming,” according to a statement released by World Triathlon. The original contingency date of Friday for both triathlon events remains in place.

“Paris 2024 and World Triathlon reiterate that their priority is the health of the athletes,” World Triathlon’s statement read in part. “The tests carried out in the Seine today revealed water quality levels that did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held.”

The postponement is hardly surprising, given the challenges that the Seine’s conditions posed and the spotty history of the Olympics’ open-water events. Paris spent a reported $1.5 billion (in American dollars) to try to clean the Seine, but swimming has been illegal in the river for more than a century, and rain often leads to rising levels of E. coli and other contaminants. Problems related to pollution and water impurity plagued previous Summer Games in Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney.

Ivan Puskovitch, an Episcopal Academy alumnus, is scheduled to compete in the men’s marathon swimming event on Aug. 9. Weeks before the Summer Games began, he, his family, and his coaches expressed concerns about the quality of the Seine’s water and the possibility that the Olympics’ open-water events would either have to be moved indoors or prove altogether unsafe.

“I think about that a lot,” Puskovitch said in May. “I would really love to race in the Seine. It’s so iconic. That said, I’m a little bit disappointed they’ve had so much time to get this thing cleaned up, and there’s still no certainty.”