US conquers murky Siene for silver in mixed triathlon relay: Don't care 'if I get sick'

PARIS – Seth Rider came to the Paris Olympics to get a medal, and if that means he leaves with a raging case of diarrhea, that’s fine by him.

Rider, Taylor Spivey, Morgan Pearson and Taylor Knibb won a silver medal in the mixed triathlon relay Monday, finishing in a time of 1:25.40, 1/100th of a second behind gold-winning Germany.

Team USA and bronze medal-winning Great Britain had a photo finish for second place. Both the race scoreboard and Eurosport TV broadcast initially announced Great Britain as the silver-medal winner after the photo finish, and when the teams lined up for the medal presentation the American flag was flown behind the third-place podium.

"(I found out about the change) when we were lining up," Knibb said. "We were on (the bronze medal) side and they’re like, ‘You’re on the wrong side.’

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"(My teammates) were all confident that (we took silver). They’re like, ‘We saw the photo, it looks like it.’ I don’t know. I was in it, I wasn’t really focused on where (Great Britain athlete) Beth (Potter) was (at the finish line)."

Great Britain, which won gold in the event’s debut at the 2020 Olympics, led most of the race but Knibb closed the gap for the U.S. with a strong anchor leg before Germany's Laura Lindemann pulled ahead in the final moments of the run for the win.

In Monday’s relay, each competitor swam one lap of 300 meters in the Seine River, biked 7 kilometers around the Paris city streets, then ran two laps of 900 kilometers.

The race came five days after the men’s and women’s individual triathlons and amid lingering concerns about the safety of the heavy-polluted Seine.

The river has been closed for public swimming for more than 100 years, but the city of Paris invested a reported $1.5 billion in its cleanup in the years leading up to the games.

Despite that investment, the men’s triathlon was postponed last week because of water quality concerns – both that event and the women’s triathlon were run July 31 – and competitors were restricted to swimming in pools to practice for the event.

The Belgian team withdrew from the relay Sunday after one of its athletes, Claire Michel, got sick from swimming in the Seine, according to the country's national Olympic committee.

"We'll see," Rider said after swimming in the murky brown water Monday. "You never really know. You just have to trust that World Triathlon wouldn't put us in something that's horrible to swim in. And I mean the current was insane. That was super hard physically. And then with the water quality, we just have to wait and see, but to be honest, I don't really care now if I get sick. This is my main goal. So like, one night in the bathroom for an Olympic silver medal, I'll take it."

Rider said athletes were given water quality reports on the river before the event.

"It felt a little bit grosser than the individual, to be honest," Netherlands triathlete Richard Murray said. "It was a bit browner the water than the individual, I think as well."

The Netherlands finished in 10^th place, far out of medal contention Monday, but Murray said the chance to win a medal trumped any concerns he had about the water’s safety.

"I think if you’ve got diarrhea for a week it’s not the end of the world, but you don’t want it to hang on for the rest of your life, I guess," he said. "I think on the individual it was OK. Very few people mentioned getting ill. I think those numbers generally is a good way to look at it."

Other athletes shared a similar sentiment, though Pearson said he would have liked to see Olympic organizers do more to ensure athlete health.

He said the swimming portion of the triathlon and Monday’s relay take could have taken place in an enclosed pool of water within the Seine outfitted with a water filtration device.

"They should have made like a big net in the shape of a canoe and had us swim in there," Pearson said. "Basically what I’m trying to say is I think they could have invested more into having clean water. It seems like they kind of were just hoping for the best and know that athletes are going to do it because it’s the Olympics. So I think they could have invested more. Maybe differently. It sounds like they invested a lot of money, but maybe they had the wrong ideas. They need more idea people."

Great Britain’s Georgia Taylor-Brown said she and her teammates took pre-race precautions like using Pepto Bismol and mouthwash to try and prevent getting sick, and Pearson said he was surprised Monday’s race went off as scheduled because of recent rain showers.

"It just seemed like a bit of a crapshoot if we’d race or not," he said. "It’d rain one day, the water quality would get bad and then it would slowly go down. So it’s like, I think from a lot of perspective is just like we’re just kind of hoping for the best and they’ve been talking about this for a couple years now and we’re the week of the Olympics and they’re just hoping for the best.

"I’ll be surprised if a lot − it’ll be interesting what the next couple days hold because I was actually surprised that we had the race today cause it seemed like every time it rained the water quality would get worse and it rained two nights ago and the night before and it rained a lot. I actually went to bed expecting … the race wouldn’t happen. So I think it’ll be interesting to see how many athletes get sick in the next couple days."

None of the U.S. athletes said they suffered any ill effects from the triathlon, and after Sunday's race they celebrated their medal haul, which matched the silver medal the U.S. won in the event in Tokyo.

Knibb, who finished 19^th in the women’s triathlon and raced in a cycling time trial last week, said she was disappointed she wasn't going home with more medals but called Sunday’s silver "a silver lining" to her time Paris.

"I've never been in a sprint finish before, so I'm like coming around maybe with 400 meters to go, I'm like, ‘How do I do this?’" Knibb said. "But then when Beth was coming, I could see her in my peripheral vision and it's just like I needed to find another gear and keep going. But hats off to both Germany and Great Britain for putting on really good performances all around."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

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