By Anya Pelshaw on SwimSwam
Sweden’s Victor Johansson will not race in the men’s open water 10km that is scheduled for tomorrow, August 9th. Johansson was recommended by the Swedish medical staff not to swim in the event and followed that advice.
“After we have weighed their recommendation with all the risks that exist, it felt like the best decision is to drop out. Therefore, it has now been decided that I will not swim,” Johansson said to the Swedish outlet Dagens Nyheter. “There is a lot of information that has been flying around, but what we know for sure is that people have become ill. So even though the levels (intestinal bacteria e-coli) have gone down, it didn’t feel good to start,” he continued.
Johansson was one of 32 men scheduled to swim in the race tomorrow morning. He also was the only man from Sweden to be in the race.
“After careful consideration of all the factors surrounding Victor, my recommendation is that he should not swim in the Seine as it stands now. Health is always most important,” says Swedish doctor Lykke Tamm.
Johansson is coming off of swimming in three pool events, the 400, 800, and 1500 freestyles. He finished 16th in the 800, 17th in the 1500, and 18th in the 400.
The men’s 10km race is the final event scheduled to swim in the Seine. The individual triathlon competition took place last Wednesday for both the men and women after the men’s race was postponed due to poor water quality. Days after the women’s race, Belgium’s Claire Michel was hospitalized due to E. Coli.
The Seine River had high levels of pollution leading up to the triathlon events as training sessions were canceled the Sunday and Monday before the race. Open water athletes had a training session canceled on Tuesday due to poor water quality. E. Coli levels have been high in the Seine River, including 10x too high just over a month before the Olympics began.
The women’s open water race took place this morning as scheduled. Notably, the open water 10km race is much longer than the swimming portion of the triathlon race as that was only 1.5km.
Although Johansson is out of the race, Austria’s Felix Auboeck has announced he will be in the 10km tomorrow. Auboeck swam the men’s 400 free last but did not advance to finals. He then no showed the 200 free but returned for the 800 free.
Aubeock posted to his Instagram, “Didn’t go as planned at my main events due to illness, but now I’m back and healthier than ever! 
Feeling extra motivated and pumped for tomorrow’s 10K race!”
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