In a rare sight, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo dipped in River Seine in Paris after the cleanliness drive. She lived up to her promise of swimming in the river in the French capital to allay fears over water quality ahead of the Paris Olympics 2024 that will begin on July 26.

Hidalgo was occupied by 100 officials, athletes and local people while she swam in the river after a slew of tests declared the water safe following an enormous clean-up drive.

Since 2015, the organizers have pumped in a whopping $1.5 billion to prepare the Seine for the summer games and to ensure Parisians have a cleaner river in the years after the Paris Olympics 2024.

“It’s a dream day … and the sun is out,” Hidalgo said after swimming 100 metres downstream in water measured at 20C (68F). “It’s sweet and wonderful and the result of a lot of work. I remember at the very beginning in 2015 when we began our campaign for the Games, the international triathlon federation said why not a triathlon in the Seine? Will athletes be able to swim in the Seine? Today we can say they can.”

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Triathlon events of the Games would take place later this month. But water testing had shown that E. coli bacteria levels had gone well above acceptable range on the majority of days between June 3 and July 2, which would potentially expose athletes to serious health risks.

Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris Olympics 2024 organizing committee, thanked the authorities for achieving the target. “Today we have confirmation that the Seine is swimmable and that the triathlon and marathon swimming competitions can take place in it,” he said.

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Swimming in the Seine River, which bisects Paris, has been banned since 1923 owing to health risks. In 1990, Jacques Chirac, the then mayor of Paris, promised to make it clean enough to swim in, but failed.