When Rio de Janeiro was announced as the winning bid for the 2016 Summer Games, it seemed like an inspired choice.
It would be the first time a South American country hosted the Olympics. At the time the decision was made, in 2009, Brazil was riding an unprecedented wave of economic prosperity, thanks largely to oil revenues. Many saw the Games as an opportunity for the country to unveil its new, modern self to the world.
Today, with the opening of the Games slightly more than a month away, the picture couldn't be more different. Due in large part to the collapse in oil prices, the country's once-roaring economy is in shambles. The political and business elite have been caught up in the largest corruption scandal in the country's history. President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in May over alleged budget improprieties. Crime is once again soaring.
Leonardo Espindola, a top official in Rio's state government, was quoted in The New York Times last week as saying, "We are nearing a social collapse." Recently, Rio declared a state of "public calamity" – acknowledging it is bankrupt and unable to honour its Olympic obligations. (According to reports, so broke is the city that it had to close its morgue because it could not pay for cleaning. Bodies were shipped to other cities.) The federal government stepped in and bailed out the city. In the modern history of the Olympics, it is difficult to think of a country beset with so many seemingly insurmountable challenges on the eve of hosting the Games.
And we haven't even mentioned pollution and the Zika virus.
In their pitch to the International Olympic Committee, Rio organizers promised that the venue where sailing would be held – the infamously polluted Guanabara Bay – would be cleaned up by the time the Games opened. It won't be. The Associated Press has reported that disease-causing virus levels linked to human waste in the water are 1.7 million times above acceptable levels. Yes, you read that correctly. One German sailor practising recently at an Olympic test event was hospitalized with an infection contracted in the water. (In unrelated water news, this week human body parts washed up next to the Games' beach volleyball venue, reported Reuters.)
Then there is Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that can cause birth defects. So serious are concerns about the threat it poses to Olympic athletes and visitors of child-bearing age that 200 doctors from around the world signed a letter urging the IOC to either postpone or move the Games to another city. The IOC maintains the position that any risk is slim. That hasn't stopped some athletes from deciding to take a pass, including two of the world's top golfers, Northern Ireland's Rory Mcllroy and Australia's Jason Day. More athletes are expected to pull the chute before the Games begin.
The word out of Rio has been so consistently bad that the IOC surely must have considered, however fleetingly, postponing or moving the Games. But ultimately an organization as arrogant as the Olympic committee couldn't fathom such a course of action, so damaging would it be to the organization's already disgraceful reputation.
As someone heading to Rio myself, I'll confess to some trepidation. There have been reports of athletes in town for training being robbed at knife point by gangs. Security is certain to be beefed up by Games time, but I'm sure I'll be doing less exploring of local environs, certainly at night, than at previous Olympics.
Mostly, I feel horrible for the Brazilian people. They didn't ask for these Olympics; the elites did. And yet thousands of citizens were moved from their homes to accommodate Games preparations. The final price tag, as is nearly always the case, will be much greater than initially advertised. Right now, the anticipated deficit is $6-billion. Many believe it will be significantly larger. When the Olympic circus leaves town, that will be Brazil's mess to solve.
Meanwhile, government officials are maintaining a brave face, insisting that the Games will instill a new sense of pride in their countrymen. It is the kind of hopeful rhetoric that host countries have learned to adopt over the years. Unfortunately, when the Olympic flame is finally snuffed out, and the crowds have disappeared, what is left behind often takes generations to clean up.
Gary Mason