Was using the River Seine river as a venue worth it?
The start of the women’s 10k open swim at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
Emily Kaplan and Connor O’Halloran
Aug 8, 2024, 08:37 PM ET
PARIS — As rain hammered down at the Olympic opening ceremony, Paris deputy mayor Pierre Rabadan stood soaking wet in the bleachers. For a brief moment, he felt a sense of worry.
The city had spent €1.5 billion ($1.4 billion) on a project to clean the River Seine. Lately, he had been in charge of ensuring a river-based ceremony featuring hundreds of floating barges could be held safely. Even more difficult, the Seine would feature four Olympic events, in triathlon and marathon swim.
The lasting impact of these Games would be the river itself: Around 100 years ago, Parisians could swim safely in the Seine. The dream was to use the Olympics as a vehicle to command the city into doing that again.
But there was one crucial flaw.
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