France’s Cassandre Beaugrand won gold in the women’s triathlon at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday, cheered on by a jubilant audience as the hosts’ gamble to keep the race’s swim segment in the Seine paid off after days of uncertainty. The triathlon, a highlight of the Paris Games, began and ended at the Alexandre III bridge in the center of the French capital, sending athletes down a stretch of the Champs-Elysees and past other Parisian sites such as the Musee d’Orsay.
The men’s triathlon was supposed to take place on Tuesday, but after the river failed water quality testing, it was rescheduled for 10:45 a.m. (0845 GMT) on Wednesday, right after the women’s race.
The women’s triathlon began at 8 a.m., just as the overnight rain had subsided, providing stunning views as they swam in the Seine before racing their bikes and sprinting into the center of Paris.
A few athletes lost control of their bicycles after slipping on the Champs-Elysees’ damp cobblestones.
World number one Beaugrand raced away on the final lap of the run stage, propelled to the finish line by jubilant applause from the people lining the streets. Switzerland’s Julie Derron won silver, while Britain’s Beth Potter grabbed bronze.
The competitions’ continuation will come as a comfort to teams and athletes, as well as Paris authorities, who have promised inhabitants the swimmable Seine as a long-term legacy of the Games, with the triathlon serving as a public test.
“We have accomplished in four years what had been impossible for a century: the Seine is swimmable,” President Emmanuel Macron tweeted following the event.
The risk that the river would be clean enough for the triathlon was never assured to come off, as water quality varies greatly from day to day, with rains increasing concentrations of infection-causing germs like E. coli.
“I have no doubts about the quality of the Seine, we’ve swum in worse water,” Beaugrand said after her victory, adding that canceling the swim and hosting a duathlon — the organizers’ final alternative if the river was too unclean — would have been “shameful” for the sport.
Despite the rain overnight, Wednesday’s races went ahead as planned.
According to Paris 2024, organizers make the decision based on an examination of river samples collected the day before at 5 a.m. and conversations with meteorological specialists.
Showers resumed about 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday, making racing conditions more difficult for the bike stage, which includes some tight turns and a fifth of the course on cobblestones.
At 8 a.m., fifty-five women from 34 countries began the contest, with Beaugrand and Potter leaping into the river from a floating pontoon near the bridge.
“The results of the latest water analyses received at 3.20 a.m., have been assessed as compliant by World Triathlon, allowing for the triathlon competitions to take place,” Paris 2024 and World Triathlon stated in a statement.
Paris has spent 1.4 billion euros ($1.52 billion) in public funds on wastewater infrastructure to control sewage and reduce spills into the river, and Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a plunge earlier this month to reassure critics that the water would not make them sick.