RIO - "Not Ready"

[DrLeftover]

Apr 29, 2014

In an unusually blunt public warning, a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday called the delayed preparations for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro "the worst I have experienced."

John Coates, who has made six trips to Brazil as part of the IOC's co-ordination commission for Rio, said the Brazilians are behind "in many, many ways" and are in worse shape than Greek organizers were in preparing for the 2004 Olympics.

Despite the critical delays, the Australian said there is no backup plan and the games will take place in Rio.

Coates noted that the IOC had taken the unprecedented step of embedding experts in the host city to help the local organizing committee deliver the games.

"The IOC has formed a special task force to try and speed up preparations but the situation is critical on the ground," Coates told an Olympic forum in Sydney, outlining that construction delays are just part of the problem. "The IOC has adopted a more hands-on role. It is unprecedented for the IOC, but there is no plan B. We are going to Rio."

Brazil has also come under fire from football's world governing body, FIFA, for long delays in construction of stadiums and other infrastructure and the overdue delivery of venues for the World Cup, which kicks off in June. Two years out from the 2016 Olympics, the situation on the construction front is just as bleak.

"We have become very concerned. They are not ready in many, many ways," Coates said. "And this is against a city that's got social issues that also have to be addressed; a country that's also trying to deal with the FIFA World Cup coming up in a few months."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/rio-olympics-preparations-the-worst-i-have-experienced-ioc-official-says-1.2625355?cmp=rss

 

[Jazzy]

Bad choice to begin with and they should ditch this now.

 

[DrLeftover]

I think the World Cup which gets underway in a few weeks is going to be very telling.

But if they were to move the games, what city COULD be ready except perhaps Bejing or London, who just had them, or someplace like New York or LA, which the IOC would never allow?

 

[Jazzy]

But if they were to move the games, what city COULD be ready except perhaps Bejing or London, who just had them, or someplace like New York or LA, which the IOC would never allow?

IOC seems to not really care according to this article:

Some sports federations have recently demanded a ‘Plan B’ from the IOC in the event the city’s venues are not ready – but Coates says there is no alternate plan – Rio has to be ready.

Read more

 

[Evil Eye]

I can't say I'm surprised exactly. After all, people've been complaining for ages now.

 

[DrLeftover]

I agree with the Committee's decision to not have a 'plan B' to a point, for now.

To a point. And. For Now.

If they did say "if Rio can't do it we'll move the games back to London" then that would take the pressure off Brazil, and you could bet that most work would come to a standstill.

This way, it is a 'Do or Die' for one of the world's Emerging Nations and if Brazil fails, the next one that tries to win the games will think about it a little longer.

However, if by this time next year the place is still a mess, and the games are then just a year away, they might want to petition another location to at least dust off their 'game plan'.

 

[DrLeftover]

Note to Olympic Sailors: Don’t Fall in Rio’s Water

MAY 18, 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO — Nico Delle Karth, an Austrian sailor preparing for the 2016 Summer Olympics, said it was the foulest place he had ever trained.

Garbage bobbed on the surface, everything from car tires to floating mattresses. The water reeked so badly of sewage that he was afraid to put his feet in it to launch his boat from shore.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Mr. Delle Karth said of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympic sailing and windsurfing events will take place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/world/americas/memo-to-olympic-sailors-in-rio-dont-touch-the-water.html?_r=0

 

[Jazzy]

How much more is it going to take for the Committee to have a 'plan B' now?

 

[DrLeftover]

The stadium the opening game will be played in tomorrow is not complete.

Several workers have been killed lately in the attempt to get various projects ready.

It's going to be ugly.

11 June

The biggest question for Thursday's opening match of the World Cup isn't whether host Brazil can beat Croatia but how the unfinished and troublesome Itaquerao stadium will hold up in its first ever encounter with a full-capacity crowd.

Will everything work? More importantly, will the 61,600 spectators be safe? Not even World Cup organizers can be totally sure. Because of chronic delays, worker deaths and other problems during its construction, the new arena has never been match-tested at close to full capacity.

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/night-world-cup-stadium-worry-24092820

 

[DrLeftover]

An unfinished overpass collapsed in the Brazilian World Cup host city of Belo Horizonte on Thursday, killing at least two people, emergency officials said.

Television images showed the front of a passenger bus crushed by the overpass, which was located about two miles (3 km) from the Mineirao Stadium where World Cup games are being played. Other vehicles were also crushed underneath the wreckage, officials said.

Two people died and 19 were injured, a spokeswoman for the Minas Gerais state health department told Reuters.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/overpass-collapses-world-cup-host-city-least-two-dead-n147816

 

[cynosure.x]

Brazil promised many things to the locals to make Brazil a better place for when the World Cup started. They failed. I can see why Rio is not ready for the Olympics in 2016 but if they're not willing to change the host country... then Rio is what they'll have to settle with.

 

[DrLeftover]

You've still got to like the dead bodies and raw sewage floating in the harbor.

Anybody from New Jersey would feel right at home.

 

[DrLeftover]

'Super bacteria' found in Rio's Olympic waters
Dec. 15, 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A drug-resistant "super bacteria" that's normally found in hospitals and is notoriously difficult to treat has been discovered in the waters where Rio de Janeiro's Olympic sailing events will be held, scientists said Monday.

The Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Brazil's most respected health research institute, said it has discovered bacteria that produce an enzyme that make it resistant to most forms of treatment in water samples taken from various spots along the Carioca River. Among the spots is where the river flows into the city's Guanabara Bay, site of the 2016 sailing and wind surfing events.

Bacteria with the so-called KPC enzyme are difficult to treat. The institute said no instances of infection resulting from the contaminated water have yet been detected but warned of possible danger to swimmers.

"The illnesses caused by these microorganisms are the same as those caused by common bacteria, but they require stronger antibiotics and, sometimes, can require hospitalization," the study's coordinator, Ana Paula D'Alincourt Carvalho Assef, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "Since the super bacteria are resistant to the most modern medications, doctors need to rely on drugs that are rarely used because they are toxic to the organism."

Even if they don't immediately fall ill, those who come into contact with the bacteria run the risk of becoming carriers of the microorganism, the institute said in its statement.

"Carriers can take these resistant bacteria back to their own environments and to other people, resulting in a cycle of dissemination," said the institute, which is affiliated with Brazil's Health Ministry.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/afd63e2d3b0b4dbe9ab9f41b5abac222/super-bacteria-found-rios-olympic-waters

 

[Webster]

*reads article, then looks over towards Doc* Remind me whose bright idea it was to award the Olympics to Brazil?