News: Rio Olympics to be a disaster?

Tropez

Quote:

That's the situation facing international sports federations, with just over six months to go before the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

"I've been around since Los Angeles in 1984 and we haven't been in such a situation where a country that is staging the games is in such a vulnerable situation," Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Brazil was booming when it was awarded the games in 2009. Now it's buffeted by the worst recession since the 1930s. The currency has plunged almost 50 percent against the dollar, and inflation is over 10 percent and rising. In addition, President Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment, partly driven by a billion-dollar bribery scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras.

Organizers backed away from plans to have athletes pay for air conditioning in their rooms, but rooms in the Olympic Village won't have televisions.

Guanabara Bay and the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon — venues for sailing, rowing and canoeing — show astronomically high virus levels, documented in an on-going study by AP. Organizers can't fix the contamination and are implementing only stop-gap measures, which will leave the health of more than 1,000 athletes at risk.

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alexanderao

The AP investigation is really disturbing.

ralani

ouch. yeah i heard about the zika virus outbreak in brazil. this is what it gets for putting this over its people

Bey Admired

It will all work out!

LoKoPaNdA

It will all be alright during the games but I fear Rio goes through what the poor sis Athens went through after its Olympics.

It's so funny how the Olympics went from being the event everyone and his mother wanted to host to this costly expedition that lots of cities back away from last minute (not referring to Rio with this)

Guero

inspiration4

Can ATRL please STOP with the bating threads. It's getting so tiresome.

Quote:

No one is saying that the Olympic experience will be affected. On the contrary, Rio will be magic," Dubi said.

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes is almost bragging about the cutbacks as Brazil spends about $10 billion in public and private money to organize the games. Paes is seen as a possible 2018 presidential candidate who hopes to get traction from the Olympics.

And there's another statement from the journalist himself mentioning how the cuts won't affect the actual experience at, or portrayal of (on TV) of the games.

wesleywalrus

It's definitely not okay with the Zika virus spreading. I guess we'll see how it goes.

.:Allen:.

Should of given the games to Chicago

jpow

Yeah, the games will be 100% fine, but there is a large chance that Rio will turn into Athens afterwards.

The Olympics are a high risk event. If you have the money consistently from the time you are awarded to the time of the games, you will be fine because you can provide everything that athletes need, put on a great show, and make a profit (like most summer Olympics do), but if something happens in between that time then it can really go south as Athens showed.

getback

I think Rio will be fine. Haven't they survived the World Cup?

vuelve88

Zika Virus ha impact.

Hollywood.

Nobody thought Athens could pull it off either and they did fine.... (well until everyone left that is.)

This event has become so expensive to plan I'm surprised there's countries still willing to bid to host it.

Butters

Don't know why they thought giving Brazil the World Cup and the Summer Olympics when they dont have their **** together was a good idea...

Marvin

Rio remains unbothered

XIAN

"come to brasil" IS OVER

Grumpy Gills

Good luck with that, the aftermath of the games is so

Outlaws

Quote:

Originally posted by vuelve88

Zika Virus ha impact.

Chikungunya and zika were terrible. *****g viruses.

Mezter

Here we go again. A Sochi mess, but on a larger scale

getback

Quote:

Originally posted by Hollywood.

Nobody thought Athens could pull it off either and they did fine.... (well until everyone left that is.)

This event has become so expensive to plan I'm surprised there's countries still willing to bid to host it.

it's better off in city with good infrastructure already

like, they could totally host this in Toronto instead of that PANAM flop