Olympic Games’ €1.4bn clean-up aims to get Parisians swimming in the Seine

Organisers expect 75% of identified bacterial pollution will be gone by the time the starting gun fires for the open water events

Beside a sign saying No swimming", Pierre Fuzeau defiantly pulled on his swimming cap, slipped into the green water of the Ourcq canal on Paris's northern edge, and set off with a strong front-crawl.

The 66-year-old company director regularly joins his open-water swimming group for well-organised illegal dips, including in the River Seine, where swimming has been banned since 1923 largely as a result of the health risk from unclean water and bacteria from human waste.