Three German open water swimmers fall ill after Olympic races in the Seine River

PARIS (AP) — Three German swimmers turned sick after competing within the open water races on the Paris Olympics, although it was not instantly clear if the long-polluted Seine River was accountable for their illness.

The swimmers weren’t recognized in an announcement launched Saturday by the German Olympic Sports activities Confederation, although Leonie Beck went on social media to disclose her situation.

Beck, who completed ninth within the 10-kilometer occasion, posted an image of herself on Instagram giving a thumbs up however trying sick.

“Vomited 9 occasions yesterday + diarrhea,” she posted, earlier than including sarcastically, “Water high quality within the Seine is permitted,” accompanied by a verify mark.

The German committee mentioned in its assertion that three of its athletes turned sick.

“Two feminine German open water swimmers have been handled as outpatients (Friday) for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. They’ve been feeling significantly better since this morning,” the assertion mentioned. “One other swimmer with related signs is at the moment being handled by the German crew docs.”

The opposite German swimmer within the ladies’s open water race was Leonie Maertens, who positioned twenty second within the 24-woman subject.

Germany additionally had two swimmers within the males’s occasion: silver medalist Oliver Klemet and eighth-place finisher Florian Wellbrock. It wasn’t revealed which one was being handled.

Paris organizers and World Aquatics, the governing physique for open water swimming, launched testing figures that confirmed the water high quality was effectively inside the accepted limits deemed secure. There was a backup plan to maneuver marathon swimming to the Olympic rowing and canoeing basin if the testing confirmed ranges of E. coli and one other type of micro organism exceeded these limits.

Issues in regards to the long-polluted Seine, the place swimming had been banned for greater than a century due to bacteria-laden waters, got here to the forefront after Paris organizers introduced plans to carry open water and the swimming parts of triathlon within the iconic river that runs via the center of the French capital.

Regardless of an enormous, costly cleanup undertaking, some readings confirmed unacceptable ranges of sickness-causing micro organism, resulting in adjustments within the triathlon schedule and cancellation of one in every of two open water apply classes scheduled forward of the boys’s and ladies’s 10-kilometer races.

A number of athletes fell sick after the triathlon, however it wasn’t clear if any of their situations have been attributable to swimming within the Seine.

Although Beck clearly believes her sickness was attributable to the river, the German Olympic committee mentioned the testing confirmed it was “possible” to go forward with the 2 races.

A complete of 53 swimmers — 29 males and 24 ladies — competed within the open water races. Most mentioned the cleanliness of the water was not a problem, with ladies’s gold medalist Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands saying she really took a number of gulps of the river when she was feeling parched throughout her race.

“It was chilly,” she mentioned. “It was good.”

Eire’s Daniel Wiffen, a swimming gold medalist within the 800-meter freestyle who competed in his first open water race, shrugged off issues in regards to the cleanliness of the waterway. He mentioned the readings he noticed forward of the boys’s race confirmed much less E. coli within the Seine than one would usually discover in a pool.

The Paris organizing committee issued an announcement saying it had “heard stories of the athlete’s sickness and we want them a speedy restoration.”

“At this stage, we’re not conscious of any established hyperlink between the sickness and the Seine’s water high quality,” the assertion mentioned. ”Water high quality on the day of the marathon was thought of ‘superb’ or ‘glorious’ throughout all 4 testing factors and effectively inside the thresholds established by World Aquatics.”

World Aquatics deferred remark to Paris organizers.

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Related Press Author Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

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