Despite the complication of recent heavy rain, swimming in the River Seine is still the plan at the Paris Olympics after a $1.5 billion investment to improve the water quality. "No reasons to doubt," International Olympic Committee executive Christophe Dubi said Thursday at an online briefing after hearing from city officials and Summer Games organizers. "We are confident that we will swim in the Seine this summer."
Marathon swimmers and triathletes are scheduled to plunge into the cleaned-up waters after the Olympics open July 26.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo have promised to take a dip and show their citizens and visiting athletes all is well.
Key to the cleaning up has been digging a huge reservoir next to Austerlitz train station to collect excess rainwater and prevent bacteria-laden waste entering the river.
Heavy rains that overwhelmed old sewers in Paris prevented some test events for the Olympics from taking place last August. Organizers also have not been lucky with the weather so far this summer.
Those downpours have complicated the issue, Dubi acknowledged, though said the update Thursday was "very reassuring."
In other Paris Olympics news - from 124 years ago - the IOC awarded France an extra medal Thursday from the 1900 Summer Games and took it from Britain.
The silver medal won by Lloyd Hildebrand in men's 25-kilometer cycling has now been credited to France because, the IOC executive board decided, "even though Hildebrand was a British citizen, he was born and brought up in France, and competed for a French club before and after Paris 1900.
Indian women's archery team gets fifth seed in Olympic qualifiers, two wins shy from Paris quota
Antalya (Turkey),(PTI) Indian women's recurve team of Deepika Kumari, Bhajan Kaur and Ankita Bhakat qualified as fifth seed in the Final Olympic Qualifiers here on Friday and now stands two victories away from securing quota for the Paris Games.
The Indian team aggregated 1978 points to finish behind leaders China (1996), second-placed Japan (1991), Spain (1990) and Chinese Taipei (1982) in the qualifying standings.
By qualifying as fifth seeds, India will start from the round of 16 in the 24-team draw against 21st seeds Ukraine and may have to overcome Chinese Taipei in the quarters to grab the Paris quota.
The semifinalists will land Paris Olympic quota places.
The elimination rounds are slated later in the day.
India had an incredible qualifying round, shooting 90 perfect scores of 10 and X (the closest to the centre arrow).
It was second behind the Taiwanese archers who shot 91 10+X scores. But it did not matter as they fell behind in the overall scores.
To put things in perspective, Chinese team had a share of 88, while Japan and Spain shot 89 and 76 10+X scores.
The 10+X shots are counted to determine the placings in case of a tie.
The men's team qualifying event will be held on Saturday and will see stiff competition among 46 teams for just three available quotas. More than 300 recurve archers from 80-plus nations are competing in the final qualifying event for the Paris Olympics, beginning on July 26.
