Triathlon triumph Clean-up of Seine was well worth it

Citius, altius, antibioticus. On a clammy Wednesday morning in the 8th arrondissement, Paris staged what is, quietly but in plain sight, the keynote event of France's Olympic project.

- Barney Ronay

The women's and men's triathlon competitions were held in a loop, returning each time to the startlingly beautiful Pont Alexandre III and taking in the Champs Élysées, the Grand Palais and the western vista of the Seine.

It was a genuine triumph - a race across water, cycleway and Parisian cobbles that will have left Emmanuel Macron punching the air in his Élysée office, for reasons that go beyond the optics of a wonderfully stirring French gold for Cassandre Beaugrand in the women's race.

First, because it happened at all. By early afternoon there were already conspiracy whispers of executive action taken to get this thing on, eyebrows raised at how, after days of prohibitive pollution readings, after talk of cancellation and the political disaster of being tagged for ever as the sewage Games, the level of pathogens dropped just enough to allow the event to proceed. Sometimes, €1.5bn into your depollution project, you just get lucky.