Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: The Paris Olympics might stink
Apr 25, 2024, 5:00 AM | Updated: 8:52 am
Visitors stand at the closed gates leading to the Eiffel Tower, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024 in Paris. Visitors to the Eiffel Tower were turned away for the second consecutive day because of a strike over poor financial management at one of the world's most-visited sites. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
(AP Photo/Michel Euler)
Editor’s note: This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.
SALT LAKE CITY — The excitement is building toward the morning of Pioneer Day. While most of us are still asleep, Olympic officials in Paris are expected to announce that Salt Lake City has won the Winter Games for 2034.
The announcement will be made in Paris because that’s where the Summer Games will begin two days later. So fasten your chapeau. Let’s go to Paris! Come on.
Okay, here we are in Paris, the city of lights, the city of romance. I’m wearing a beret to blend in. Here along the banks of the river Seine, over there, that’s the Eiffel Tower! But wait, we always talk about the beautiful banks of the Seine, but it’s just a river through the middle of the city with no riverbanks. Just concrete walls along the sides. And ew. It smells. And not like roses, so forget the romance. Paris has a sewage problem.
Most of it generated by the two million residents ends up in the Seine, which will be used for long-distance swimming events in the Olympics.
Paris promised to clean it up but this spring, the bacteria level in the river is 20 times what’s allowed by sporting officials. Consider this, long-distance swimmers typically swallow an ounce of water an hour. It’d be like drinking out of a toilet bowl. Before the flush.
Paris could suffer a huge pink eye because the promise to clean up the river was unkept. Just a reminder as we wait for Utah’s Olympic Games that if you don’t get it right, your reputation can turn to… how do you say? Poop.
Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X.
