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2024 Paris Olympics triathlon mixed relay held despite Belgian who swam in Seine taking ill
Olympic triathletes plunged into the Seine River Monday morning as the mixed relay event got underway after organizers said the bacteria levels in the long-polluted Paris waterway were at acceptable levels.
In a very close sprint finish, the team from Germany won the gold medal, with the United States taking silver and Britain clinching bronze.
The plan to hold the swimming portion of the triathlons and the marathon swimming events in the Seine was an ambitious one. Swimming in the river has, with some exceptions, been off-limits since 1923 because it’s been too toxic.
FRANCK FIFE / AFP via Getty Images
Representatives from World Triathlon and the International Olympic Committee along with Paris Games organizers and regional and weather authorities met Sunday night to review water tests. The results indicated the water quality at the triathlon site had improved over the preceding hours and would be within the limits mandated by World Triathlon by Monday morning, they said in a statement.
The decision to allow the event to go forward with swims in the Seine came after Belgium’s Olympic committee announced Sunday that it would withdraw its team from the mixed relay triathlon after one of its competitors who swam in the river last week fell ill. It wasn’t clear whether her illness had anything to do with her swim in the Seine.
Paris spent 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) on infrastructure improvements to clean up the river that flows through its center. That included the construction of a giant basin to capture excess rainwater and keep wastewater from flowing into the river, renovating sewer infrastructure and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
Heavy rains that have fallen off and on during the Games have caused headaches for organizers because they result in elevated levels of fecal bacteria, including E. coli and enterococci, flowing into the river. Drenching rains fell Thursday night but conditions had otherwise been dry except for light rain Saturday evening. The sun shone brightly as the race unfolded Monday and athletes said organizers reassured them there were no concerns with water quality.
Organizers have continued to express confidence that warm temperatures and the sun’s ultraviolet rays would combine to kill enough germs ahead of each event set to include a swim in the Seine.
Athletes swam in the river for the men’s and women’s individual triathlons Wednesday, though the men’s race had been delayed by a day because of the water quality. Elevated bacteria levels in the waterway have caused cancellations of the swimming portion of training sessions for the relay event.
Daily water quality tests measure levels of the fecal bacteria, including E. coli. World Triathlon’s water safety guidelines and a 2006 European Union directive assign qualitative values to a range of E. coli levels.
Under World Triathlon’s guidelines, E. coli levels up to 1,000 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters can be considered “good” and can allow competitions to go forward.
The triathlon mixed relay involves four-person teams made up of two men and two women, with each athlete swimming for 300 yards, cycling for 4.2 miles and running for 1.2 miles.
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The Chicago White Sox on Friday broke Major League Baseball’s 62-year-old single-season record with the most losses during a season with their 121st defeat against the Detroit Tigers.
The White Sox lost the game 4-1. This came after they had won three games in a row against the Los Angeles Angels and had hovered at 120 losses.
On Thursday, the Sox shut out the Angels 7-0.
The 121 losses eclipsed the total that the 1962 expansion New York Mets recorded. The White Sox had already surpassed the 2003 Detroit Tigers, a team that lost 119 games, setting the American League record. MLB only counts records set in the modern era, which began in 1900, so the 1899 Cleveland Spiders’ all-time record of 134 losses is not included.
The incredible feat of futility was the culmination of a long, grueling season in which the White Sox recorded multiple double-digit losing streaks, including a 14-game skid from May 22 to June 6, and then an American League-record 21-game losing streak between July 10 and Aug. 5. All that losing led to the firing of manager Pedro Grifol during just his second season at the helm. In less than two seasons, Grifol led the team to more than twice as many losses as he did wins.
Grady Sizemore took over as interim manager for the rest of the season.
The White Sox then recorded another 12-game losing streak that lasted from Aug. 23 through Sept. 3.
Jeff Chiu / AP
It’s been a season unlike anything fans of the franchise, which will mark the 20th anniversary of its last World Series win next year, have ever seen. The team’s winning percentage through Sunday of .231 is still significantly behind the next-worst season in franchise history, the 1932 White Sox that went 49-102-1 and posted a winning percentage of .325.
Until this season, the White Sox team with the most single-season losses in franchise history was the 1970 team, which went 56-106. This year’s team is just the sixth in franchise history to record 100 or more losses in a season, according to Baseball Reference, which has team statistics going back to 1901, the year the American League formally organized.
“I feel your pain”
The White Sox record has been so bad that even the team’s official X (formerly Twitter) account has been having some fun with the piling up of losses lately.
On Sept. 18, after a loss to the Angels, the team’s post for its final score read, “FINAL: the other team scored more runs than us.”
Last Saturday, the team posted, “FINAL: can be found on the MLB app,” after a loss to the Padres.
Then on Sunday, the team’s account posted a version of a widely used GIF of a car attempting to quickly drive onto an exit ramp, representing the team’s social media administrator, turning away from posting the final score and instead opting for “literally anything else.”
The Sox kept it up on social media after the Friday night loss.
A post read:
Things we’d rather do than read comments:
- Get a root canal
- File taxes
- Eat 5,000 saltine crackers without water
- The cinnamon challenge
- Put ketchup on a hot dog
- Bear crawl across the Sahara Desert
- Walk barefoot on an L train
The post also showed a separate window on a computer desktop screenshot showing a dejected Southpaw White Sox mascot, with the text, “slams laptop shut til tomorrow.”
The situation even prompted famed horror writer and Boston Red Sox fan Stephen King to weigh in on social media.
“Chicago White Sox fans, I feel your pain,” King posted on X. “As a fan of those other Sox, I tried to switch my loyalty to Cleveland during one particularly awful season (Butch Hobson, I’m talking about you). I couldn’t do it. Things will get better. They CAN’T get worse.”
Mark J. Terrill / AP
Despite the jokes on social media, White Sox team leadership has faced questions about what went wrong and how the team has been withstanding the historically difficult season.
General Manager Chris Getz summed up the feelings of the organization last month when he spoke to members of the news media after Grifol’s dismissal.
“There was lack of production overall,” Getz said. “I mean you look at how many games that we’ve led early and weren’t able to finish or how many games we haven’t been able to come back to get a win. Obviously, there was something that was broken. We know the flaws in this roster, but with that being said, we expected to win more games. We did.”
After last Sunday’s loss to the San Diego Padres, the team’s 120th of the season to tie the major league record, Sizemore, in true manager fashion, attempted to downplay the importance of the historic mark for the club.
“No loss is good,” Sizemore said. “Like I said, it’s not something we’re focused on. I think probably everyone outside of this clubhouse will be more obsessed with it than us.”