Training sessions in the Seine scheduled for today ahead of the open water swimming competitions have been canceled due to water which organizers have described as "unsuitable for swimming" .
This is the fifth training session canceled since the start of the Games , with the first four involving triathlon, a discipline whose men's competition, again due to pollution, was then postponed by a day.
There is therefore now uncertainty about whether the open water swimming competitions will take place on the scheduled dates .
«It's one thing to do a short race like a triathlon, it's another to swim 10km. Now the situation is borderline » said the president of CONI, Giovanni Malagò , commenting on the situation in the Seine where the open water swimming tests have yet to take place. In any case «I am confident. So much so that I asked, as an IOC member, to host the awards ceremony for that race", he said in an interview with La Stampa.
And after the withdrawal of Claire Michel, the Belgian athlete who fell ill, most likely suffering from Escherichia coli, there are other athletes in the Village who report symptoms similar to the Belgian . In particular two Swiss, for whom, however, Senna is almost exonerated: Adrien Briffod, according to his own federation, was already ill during the race, Simon Westermann, the other ill person, is a reserve and did not even compete in Senna. And here comes the other hypothesis that circulated during the day: an epidemic of gastroenteritis in the Olympic Village, which would explain the presence of symptoms similar to gastroenteritis or salmonellosis even in those who did not dive. «Claire was very weak» her coach, Thibault De Rijdt, told the Belgian media, specifying that the athlete began to feel ill on August 1st, the day immediately after the race, «she was vomiting, she had a stomach ache. And now he has symptoms of dehydration. She wouldn't even be able to go for a run, let alone race. He didn't deserve to end his career like this."
(Unioneonline/vl)
