A Canadian triathlete who made headlines after vomiting 10 times has revealed why he became ill after swimming through the polluted Seine at the Paris Olympics.
Tyler Mislowchuk, 29, who finished in ninth place, said he had a chance at a medal halfway through the final leg of Wednesday’s race but began to lose momentum.
“For me it doesn’t really matter if I’m fourth or 55th. I wanted to win a medal so for 5.5 or 6km I was basically in third place with two French guys,” the three-time Olympian said. He told Triathlon Magazine.
“At the last Olympics, I had injuries and a lot of things going on and I had a lot of ‘what ifs,'” said Mislauchuk, who finished 15th in both the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Mislauchuk claimed that the high temperatures caused him to vomit during the race – he lives in a much cooler climate.
“That day, I didn’t think about ‘what ifs’ and just gave it my all. Everything really went well. I vomited 10 times after the race. I got hot in the last few laps,” Mislauchuk said.
“I’m a kid from Winnipeg, or more accurately Oak Bluffs, where it gets minus 50 degrees in the winter, and I’m here at the Summer Olympics.”
The temperature is minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit.
The temperature at the start of the race was 78.4°F and rose to 82.04°F an hour after the race finished.
“For me, I’ve done everything I could in the last three years. I came back from a torn Achilles, a concussion, a crash. You name it, I’ve had it in the last three years,” he told media. “I showed up at the starting line healthy and gave it my all. I’m proud of my effort. I would have liked to do more, but that was it.”
Mislowchuk said she stayed motivated throughout the race, achieving small goals until she crossed the finish line.
2024 Paris Olympics
“The whole time I kept telling myself 20 seconds to go. From about 2km into the race I kept telling myself 20 seconds to go for the rest of my life and I kept doing that until 6km and then I just got a bit out of breath. Unfortunately the race was 10km and not 6km and the last 4km felt like an eternity.”
Many believe Mislauchuk’s vomiting was due to the water in the Seine, and pre-race training and the men’s race were postponed due to high levels of E. coli in the river.
Rain during last week’s opening ceremony caused sewage to overflow.
Officials gave the go-ahead Wednesday for the individual triathlon to go ahead, even though pre-race test values were still above acceptable limits in some parts of the swim course.
After the race, several triathletes spoke out, recounting unpleasant experiences they had during the race on the Seine.
Belgian athlete Joriane Vermeilen said she felt debris in the water during the women’s triathlon, which started a few hours before the men’s race.
“While I was swimming under the bridge I felt and saw things that I shouldn’t really think about,” she told Flemish television station VTM. According to Metro.
Vermeilen also said he drank a lot of water while swimming, but that “it certainly doesn’t taste like Coca-Cola or Sprite.”
Dutch players expressed similar outrage at the water, calling it “nasty” and “filthy.”
“Swimming in the Seine was disgusting,” Rachel Kramer said. RTL News“The water was dirty and the conditions were unfair. There were a lot of swimmers coming out of the water behind me who were actually faster than me. It was really a case of luck.”
Cassandre Beaugrand of France and Alex Yee of Great Britain won gold medals in their respective events.
In preparation for the Olympics in Paris, authorities have embarked on an ambitious plan to clean up the long-polluted Seine River, including $1.5 billion in infrastructure improvements.
