Olympic triathlon tournaments got underway in Paris on Thursday morning, after levels of bacteria in the River Seine fell to low enough levels for the swimming leg of the contest to take place in its waters.
Doubts over whether the tournaments would go ahead in the Seine as planned had become one of the hot news stories of this Olympics.
The women’s race kicked off at 8 a.m. local time after the Seine’s water were given the all-clear in the early hours of the morning.
As female Triathlon athletes hit the water off the Pont Alexandre III bridge in central Paris, it marked the culmination of an ambitious $1.5B (€1.4B) plan by the city of Paris to clean up the river’s notoriously polluted waters so that it could host key endurance swimming events during the Olympics.
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