Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo fulfilled her promise on Wednesday to swim in the River Seine and prove its safety ahead of the Olympic Games later this month.
Paris has spent more than €1.4 billion ($1.5bn) since 2015 to clean up the Seine and make it safe to swim in, as it plans to put it at the heart of the Games. It will hold the opening ceremony as well as the open-water swimming and triathlon events, although continued fears over water quality could yet cause the cancellation or displacement of those swimming events.
Hidalgo promised in January she would swim in the river herself before the Olympics to prove it was safe. After months of anticipation and a postponement due to France's snap elections, she finally did just that, putting on a swimsuit and taking a dip.
"It's bliss! We've been dreaming of this for years, we've worked very, very hard, the water is very good, a little cool but not that much," Hidalgo said.
She was joined by Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet. French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra performed a similar swim in the river last week.
Organisers have built a giant underground water storage basin the size of 20 Olympic swimming pools to make the water cleaner. The monitoring group Eau de Paris tests the water quality daily. It found unsafe levels of E.coli in four different places on the river last month amid heavy rainfall but has found more promising results since early July.
Officials have repeatedly warned that heavy rainstorms during the Games could cause issues with the city's sewer system.
Organisers have said the marathon swimming event could take place just outside Paris should the Seine not be suitable for competition.
The Olympic opening ceremony will take place on July 26. The Games will run until Aug. 11.
