By SwimSwam Contributors on SwimSwam
SwimSwam welcomes reader submissions about all topics aquatic, and if it’s well-written and well-thought, we might just post it under our “Shouts from the Stands” series. We don’t necessarily endorse the content of the Shouts from the Stands posts, and the opinions remain those of their authors. If you have thoughts to share, please send them to [email protected].
This “Shouts from the Stands” submission comes from Charles Hartley, a freelance writer based in Davidson, NC.
Now that the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials have stopped splashing around our living rooms, we all need to make a sharp pivot right now to a different, urgent, and unpleasant situation now percolating in Paris.
The Seine River, which runs through the city and has been too polluted for people to swim in for decades, has been the focus and cash dump for Paris Olympics officials leading up to the Games. They’ve been trying to make sure it’s going to be clean enough to swim in for contestants in the 10-kilometer (6.2 mile) marathon and triathlon races.
This is true and it has me concerned, and if you’re a swimming fan you should be unsettled as well. Word out of Paris is the Mayor of Paris said she would swim in the river before the Games to demonstrate to the world she believes the water is safe for people to swim in. But so far she hasn’t – and may never will – because rainy conditions lately have slowed progress in cleaning up the gross gumbo. Hot warm weather devoid of rain helps clean pollutants out; rain keeps them in.
What this calls for is an act of patriotism and leadership and I believe I’m the one who is well suited to take on this challenge having done some things in my past that weren’t normal or socially impressive but nonetheless harmless and authentic and sometimes inspiring and laudable.
I volunteer myself to be the one to fly over to Paris this weekend, go into an astronaut outfit rocking a red, white, and blue Speedo underneath, take test tubes in the water for samples, and deliver them for examination by French healthcare officials and politicians.
I don’t know about you but I can’t stomach the idea of the 10 km marathon swim race and triathlon swimming leg being cancelled because the water is too disgusting. Use your imagination and you will be correct.
The world needs to see these events. The Olympics happen only every four years and are held in Paris like every half-century. There’s got to be a way to cleanse ourselves – and our minds — of this muck.
The Games must go on.
I will take this on.
There will be a set agenda.
After swimming and diving into the river eyeballing the water quality I would like to make arrangements with Paris authorities to hold a press conference at the top of the Eiffel Tower where I will, if all goes well in the laboratories, be able to announce that the river is no longer a cesspool and the events will go on because if I can swim in those waters and come out alive – being 40 years older than the competitors — then world class athletes certainly can. Age matters.
After the press conference I will sit right there on the Tower and type up a blog and send it to SwimSwam with the hopes they’ll publish the pleasant-smelling news before this controversy starts to emit awful aromas all around the world. We can’t allow the integrity of the Olympics we all have treasured throughout our lives be stopped by a rank river.
Don’t you worry. I got this. I’ll clean up this whole mess.
It’s what American patriotism is all about.
About Charles Hartley
Charles Hartley is a freelance writer based in Davidson, NC. He has a masters degree in journalism and a masters degree in business administration.
SwimSwam: Shouts From The Stands: Going Into the Gumbo – Cleaning Up Rank River Before Olympics
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