Belgium’s triathlon mixed relay team has withdrawn from Monday’s event after one of its athletes who swam in the Seine River on Wednesday became ill, the team said Sunday.
The athlete, Claire Michel, competed in the women’s triathlon on Wednesday, finishing in 38th place. The team, known as the Belgian Hammers, said in a statement released by the country’s Olympic committee and triathlon federation that Michel, 35, was taken to a clinic in the Olympic Village in Paris on Sunday for treatment and had returned to her room by Sunday evening.
The team did not say whether Michel was sickened by pollution in the Seine, site of the triathlon’s 1,500-meter swim. But in the days leading up to her race, the men’s individual event was postponed and practices were canceled because water quality testing showed the Seine was unsafe to swim in.
“The BOIC and Belgian Triathlon hope that lessons will be learned for future triathlon competitions,” the statement said. “We are thinking of training days that can be guaranteed, competition days and formats that are clear in advance and circumstances that do not cause uncertainty among athletes, entourage and fans.”
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De Standaard, a daily newspaper in Belgium, reported that Michel had contracted E. coli. A spokesman for Belgium’s Olympic team declined to answer questions about Michel’s condition on Sunday.
Concerns about the water quality of the Seine have clouded the Olympics. Leading up to the games, more than $1.5 billion was spent to make the river safe for athletes to compete in.
But Paris has been hit with rain since the opening weekend of the Games, when the city received about a month’s worth of rainfall over 36 hours, the authorities said. The rain led to a spike in dangerous bacteria in the river, where bacteria can take one to three days to dissipate.
Water quality tests are being conducted daily, according to officials. Last week, training was canceled for two consecutive days and the men’s triathlon was delayed by a day because of the high bacteria levels, authorities said.
On Saturday, Switzerland’s Olympic team announced it was making changes to its triathlon mixed relay lineup after one of its athletes also had to drop out of Monday’s race because of an illness. The athlete, Adrien Briffod, who competed in the men’s individual triathlon on Wednesday, had a gastrointestinal infection, but it was “not possible” to say if it was linked to the Seine’s water quality, the Swiss Olympic team said in the statement.
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There were no reports of stomach issues among athletes from other countries who participated in Wednesday’s events, Hanspeter Betschart, the Swiss team’s doctor, said in the statement.
John Yoonand Catherine Portercontributed reporting.
