Can Paris fix its poop problem before the Olympics?

Back in 2017, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo reinforced one thing in the city's final push to host the

2024 Summer Olympics. That its famous river, the Seine, would be a key fixture of the Games,

including an historic Olympics opening ceremony, the first held outside of a stadium, for which

French officials initially said there is no plan B, and that open water swimming events would be

held in it. It's not hard to see why. The Seine runs along some of Paris's most famous landmarks,

like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. The thing is, swimming has been banned in the Seine for a

century, and that's because the river Seine has human s*** in it.

Like many urban waterways around the world, the Seine takes on sewage overflow during heavy rain.

when the city's underground sewer systems get overwhelmed with stormwater. Hidalgo even said

she would take a swim in the Seine herself ahead of the Games. French President Emmanuel Macron

promised the same thing. They say they're confident because of an enormous underground

infrastructure project they've built near the river, to ensure, as much as possible,

that it won't s*** on their parade. This isn't the first time Olympic open water swimming events,

the triathlon, paratriathlon, and marathon swimming, were at risk of being canceled

last minute due to water quality issues. We saw some of the same headlines during the 2020 Olympics

in Tokyo, and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. In both cases, they pulled it off, and Paris hopes