A member of the Team USA triathlon team has come up with an unusual method to cope with the River Seine’s dirty water at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Paris organisers have come under fire for failing to eliminate the issue of E.coli levels in the water, with the triathlon events postponed after water quality tests on Friday showed E. coli levels in the river fell below standards needed to authorise those competitions.
But USA olympian Seth Rider, 27, says he is trying to build up an immunity to the bacteria by exposing himself to it and also choosing not to wash his hands.
“We actually raced here last year in the test event,” he said. “I don’t think anyone got sick after that, which can’t be said about all the races we do.
“In preparation for this race, I knew there was going to be some E.coli exposure. So I’ve been trying to increase my E.coli threshold by exposing myself to a bit of E.coli in day-to-day life.
“It’s a proven method. Backed by science. It’s just little things, throughout your day. Like not washing your hands after you go to the bathroom and stuff like that.”
Rider isn’t the only triathlete to experiment with different methods to combat being exposed to the bacteria.
Taylor Spivey, 33, said she was upping her intake of probiotics to “help us withstand any kind of sickness that comes our way.”
Another male athlete, Morgan Pearson, 30, claimed that he had heard consuming carbohydrates might be the answer to a dirty river.
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The triathlon is scheduled to be held on Wednesday at 9.45am, after the women’s event, which is scheduled to start at 07:00 (08:00 local time). Final tests of the water will be taken at 2.30am BST.
World Triathlon president Marisol Casado, who previously said there was an 80 per cent chance the men’s triathlon would take place on Tuesday, has lowered the odds to a “60-40” chance of it taking place on Wednesday.
“We really want this to happen. But of course we really thought that this recuperation [the improvement in the water quality] would be faster than it was,” Casado told BBC Sport.
“We were shocked this morning when we saw that it was not as fast as we wanted.”
