The River Seine water quality was without doubt the most controversial triathlon topic at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and Kristian Blummenfelt has been vocal about the end results for triathlon and its competitors.
After months of fears of cancellations and duathlons, eventually we did get three events with swims in the iconic waterway, and three spectacular events at that.
But before the athletes played their part by delivering such epic action on course, the days leading up to the races provided only disruption and recriminations.
Seine water quality chaos
Despite the $1.5bn cleanup operation aimed at making the Seine swimmable after a century, the swim familiarisations for both individual races were cancelled, before the men’s individual race itself was moved back one day. All due to the water quality not meeting accepted standards.
We had the scenario of athletes waking in the early hours just to find out whether or not they would be racing that day, not to mention the fears about that water quality.
Belgium’s Marten Van Riel was one of the first athletes to speak publicly about the issues, talking candidly about events in the French capital.
He wrote: “If the priority was the health of the athletes this event would have been moved to another location a long time ago. We are just puppets in a puppetshow.
“Duathlon is no triathlon and changing the day like that in the middle of the night is disrespectful to the years of preparation of the athletes and to all (y)our fans that were going to watch live or on tv. What an appearance for triathlon on the biggest scene!”
Blummenfelt meanwhile, the defending Olympic champion from Tokyo in 2021, also spoke about his concerns before the men’s race, describing the chaos that ensued as “embarrassing”.
Blummenfelt on Olympics ‘gamble’
Now, in the aftermath of the Games (he would finish 12th in the men’s individual race) he has spoken about Paris – and the Seine – again, this time on the ‘Norwegian Method’ podcast (watch the full episode at the foot of this article).
When asked what surprised him most about the Games, he was forthright, answering: “In the triathlon race is that they had absolutely no control of how clean the water was. They had maybe control in terms of doing the measurement, but when the first two swim familiarisations got cancelled because of dirty water, and then the third day when the race got postponed. Then you had two more familiarisations getting cancelled and I think even the open water swim familiarisation was cancelled.
“I thought that when they decided to put the triathlon race and the open water race in the Seine that they would have control on the venue. It’s sort of like disrespectful putting an event for the athletes in a place where it’s just a gamble.”
‘Big Blu’ later spoke in more detail about the course, and said the actual concept of having a river swim was a positive for the actual race dynamic.
“If we take the swim first, it was correct to have like a river swim. To actually have a current in the water makes the whole dynamic different, so I think that was cool although it’s probably not favourable for me, I think it’s good to have that sort of flavouring into the swim course.”
Blummenfelt also spoke about the bike and run courses, and how the switch from a planned 0800 local time start to 1045 may have impacted the whole dynamic.
Why were men slower than Test Event?
“The bike course, because the swim got spread out, I think it was ridden harder than what we did in the Test Event, simply because the first group was more motivated to stay away and then we had to work to catch.
“The changes they did with the run course, where there were a little bit less cobbles and a little bit more like that out and back section just before the finish line. If you look at the run split this year from last year, I think all of the guys were running 45 seconds slower than they did last year.
“I was running a little bit slower, Alex was running like 45 seconds slower I think, while the girls were actually running a bit faster. So at first I was thinking maybe the course was longer, but then you see the girls running a bit faster than last year, that was not the case. It could have been the bike that was ridden harder or the temperature itself.
“When you postponed an 8am start to 1045, it impacts the temperature and how hard it is to race.”
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