Leonie Beck is the next in a string of athletes to speak out about the River Seine
She claims she vomited nine times and had diarrhoea a day after her 10k race
The German athlete posted on Instagram Stories to signal her displeasure
A German Olympian has claimed she vomited nine times and suffered from diarrhoea after swimming in the River Seine, again raising the alarm about its suitability for sport.
Leonie Beck finished ninth in Thursday’s women’s marathon swimming event, which sees athletes fight the waters for 10 kilometres and over two hours.
Around £1.2billion was spent clearing up a river that had seen a 100-year swimming ban ahead of the Games, but as recently as June it had 10 times the permitted E.coli bacteria levels.
The triathlons earlier in the Olympics were delayed over water quality concerns but eventually went ahead and the women’s 10k event met safety thresholds after testing.
However, Beck has opened up on the gruesome health issues she faced just a day after the event.
German athlete Leonie Beck claimed she ‘vomited nine times’ and had ‘diarrhoea’ after swimming in the River Seine
German athlete Leonie Beck claimed she ‘vomited nine times’ and had ‘diarrhoea’ after swimming in the River Seine
Beck took part in the women’s marathon swim on Thursday and felt unwell on Friday
Beck took part in the women’s marathon swim on Thursday and felt unwell on Friday
She posted an Instagram story of her holding a thumb up with the captions ‘vomited nine times + diarrhoea’ and ‘water quality in the Seine is approved’ with a green tick.
Belgian 1.5-kilometre star Jolien Vermeylen claimed earlier in August she ‘felt and saw things that we shouldn’t think about too much’ during her swim.
John Lennon to the rescue! How Olympics DJ put a stop to major spat in the beach volleyball final
article image
‘The Seine has been dirty for a hundred years, so they can’t say that the safety of the athletes is a priority. That’s bulls***,’ she told VTM.
There were fears that Olympic chiefs would have to cancel the swimming segment of the triathlon and convert it to a duathlon.
Triathlon training sessions in the Seine were cancelled in late July, leaving athletes in the dark about whether the swimming would go ahead.
Swimming in the Seine, which dissects Paris, has been banned since 1923. In 1990, Jacques Chirac, then mayor of the city, famously declared that he would make it clean enough to enter, but failed in his mission.
Meanwhile, the director general of Paris 2024 refused to apologise to competitors when asked by Mail Sport if he would do so.
‘We have to wait,’ Etienne Thobois said. ‘We don’t do fiction scenarios. We are very respectful of the athletes.
People in Paris answer if they would swim in the River Seine