Paris Olympics: World Triathlon and IOC confident triathlon races will go ahead tomorrow

Triathlon governing body World Triathlon, as well as the IOC and Paris 2024 organisers, have this afternoon all expressed confidence that the women’s and men’s Olympic triathlon races will take place tomorrow after the men’s was postponed due to poor water quality.

The new schedule will see the men’s race take place at 10:45am on Tuesday 31 July, immediately following the women’s which is due to start at 8am.

“From the [water quality test] results, we were very close to the threshold [set by World Triathlon],” said executive director of sport competitions, Aurélie Merle.

“[…] We know that the sun and the heat have a very strong impact on the quality of the water [temperatures in Paris are expected to hit 35°C today]. And that’s why we believe that tomorrow morning, the water quality will be better.”

However serious questions remain, not least what will happen to those who had tickets to the men’s race this morning.

“We are putting in place a policy around the friends and family tickets,” said IOC sports director IOC Kit McConnell. “That’s being discussed at the moment, just to see how we can accommodate the two sessions into one tomorrow.”

With further rain and even thunder storms potentially in the forecast overnight, athletes and fans of the sport face another agonising wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

“The postponement is clearly disappointing,” commented British Triathlon performance director, Mike Cavendish, “but we understand the organising committee’s desire for the event to go ahead as a triathlon.

“We’re encouraged by the weather forecast today and are now supporting Alex [Yee] and Sam [Dickinson] as they look to re-focus ahead of tomorrow’s race. Our preparations up to this point have been excellent and we have no doubt that they’ll be ready to race when the time comes.”

Again, the water quality will be tested at 3:30am tomorrow morning and a decision will be made around 4am. We will bring you updates on this developing situation as soon as we have them.

Liz Barrett 220 Deputy Editor

About

220 deputy editor Liz Barrett started work on the magazine in 2007 as staff writer. Since then, she’s reported live from almost every major triathlon across the globe, including the Ironman World Championships, 70.3 Worlds, six ITU Worlds, Challenge Roth, the 2014 and 2022 Commonwealths, the London and Paris Olympics and the Rio Paralympics, to name but a few. Name a pro and chances are she’ll have interviewed them, so, unsurprisingly, she’s our go-to pro-athlete expert on the team. When not covering races, you’ll find her whipping words into finely-crafted shape for both the magazine and website.