The city of Paris set aside a reported $1.5 billion to clean up the Seine River for use during the Summer Olympic Games. But things aren’t quite going as planned.
Despite Paris’s attempts to turn the Seine into the centerpiece of the games (even using it as a quasi-runway for the opening ceremony), heavy rainfall last week and into the weekend has forced the city to press pause on plans to use the river for water sporting events in this year’s games. Organizers cancelled river training for the second straight day Monday, citing unsafe pollution levels.
Tests done on Saturday “revealed water quality levels that in the view of the international federation, World Triathlon, did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held,” Paris 2024 said in a statement. The organization is “confident” the men’s triathlon will take place in the river Tuesday.
The river is set to host three swimming events. To prove just how safe the river is for athletes, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo swam in it on July 17, before the start of the games.
In all, spending on this year’s Olympics is set to come in at about $10.8 billion, according to a report from S&P Global $SPGI Ratings. That’s about 25% over Paris’s initial budget.
That figure would also fall well below spending at past summer Olympics, where budgets have been — and continue to be — a contentious issue. Take a look at the three most expensive past games, by the numbers:
$28 billion: Tokyo’s estimated spending on the 2021 Olympics.
$23.6 billion: The budget of the Rio 2016 games.
$17 billion: What London spent on their summer games in 2012.
But the investments tend to pay dividends. Oxford Economics estimates that the 2024 Olympics could generate up to $11.6 billion and up to 247,000 jobs. Anywhere from 13-33% of that whopping dollar figure is expected to come from tourism-related activity.