There has of course been a lot to do about the Olympic triathlons in recent weeks, with the poor water quality of the Seine causing all course reconnaissance to be cancelled, the men’s race to be postponed by 24 hours and until just a few hours before the start it was still unclear whether there would be any swimming at all during the races themselves, and now Kristian Blummenfelt has also spoken out. The former Olympic Champion calls the whole situation ‘disrespectful to athletes’.
So says Blummenfelt in the “Norwegian Method” podcast. “In the triathlon race is that they had absolutely no control of how clean the water was. They had maybe control in terms of doing the measurement, but when the first two swim familiarisations got cancelled because of dirty water, and then the third day when the race got postponed. Then you had two more familiarisations getting cancelled and I think even the open water swim familiarisation was cancelled. I thought that when they decided to put the triathlon race and the open water race in the Seine that they would have control on the venue. It’s sort of like disrespectful putting an event for the athletes in a place where it’s just a gamble.”
Full podcast here:
