Paris is hosting its first-ever 20-meter platform diving competition on the Seine
Paris is hosting its first high-diving competition in the Seine. Athletes are diving from a 20-meter platform set up near the Bir-Hakeim Bridge, across from the Eiffel Tower. The tournament is part of the European Aquatics Championships.
Preparations for Thursday’s events were suspended after traces of hydrocarbons were detected upstream. On Friday, the French Swimming Federation reported that the contaminated area had been cleaned up. Afterward, the athletes were able to return to the water, and the competition continued as scheduled.
Maksym Suvazh, Paris’s deputy mayor for sports, Sports Infrastructure, and Equal Access to Sports, Maxim Suvazh, noted that ahead of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the city had made significant investments to make the Seine safe for swimming. The work, in particular, involved preventing direct discharges of wastewater into the river and improving stormwater management.
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The final two rounds and medal competitions in high diving are scheduled to take place on Saturday. The European Aquatics Championships will run through August 16. More than 1,000 athletes are participating in five disciplines: swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, open-water swimming, and high-dive competitions.
The 38th championship marks the centennial of the first European championship, which took place in Budapest in 1926. Paris last hosted this tournament in 1931. The Seine is also the venue for the open-water swimming competitions.
Swimming in the Seine was officially banned in 1923 due to pollution and the dangers posed by river traffic. Public swimming in the river resumed in 2025 after Paris and its partners raised 1.4 billion euros to make the water safe for swimming.
