Marathon swimming athlete training session in River Seine goes ahead

World Aquatics cancelled a familiarisation session 24 hours earlier ahead of the women's race on Thursday and men's event on Friday as water quality assessments found that levels of Enterococci - an indicator of faecal pollution - were too high in the river.

But a Paris 2024 statement said: "During a meeting on water quality held on 7 August at 4am attended by representatives from World Aquatics, including their technical delegates and medical delegates, Paris 2024, Meteo France, DRIEAT and the City of Paris involved in carrying out water quality tests, World Aquatics have confirmed that the familiarisation session for the marathon swimming (athlete training) will go ahead as planned on 7 August from 7.30-9.30AM.

"The results of the latest water quality tests, reviewed during the meeting at 4am, have been assessed as compliant by World Aquatics, allowing for the familiarisation session for the marathon swimming to take place."

The issue of water quality had dominated the build-up to all three triathlons in the first week of the Games.

Several familiarisation sessions were cancelled and the men's race delayed by one day to allow conditions to improve.

Monday's mixed relay went ahead without the Belgian team, who withdrew after athlete Claire Michel fell ill having competed in the women's race, finishing 38th, the previous Wednesday.

In the build-up to the Olympics, Paris invested 1.4billion euros trying to clean up the Seine, but water quality levels have dipped during the Games after a number of storms.

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