For samba and the best beach volleyball venue in the world, an Olympics in Rio de Janeiro won’t lack in festive feel.
For violent crime and the unsightly poverty of the sprawling favelas, or shantytown slums, it may be one of the most challenging Games in the history of the rings.
That the International Olympic Committee on Friday decided on the Brazilian city for the 2016 Summer Games was certainly a bold move, but not necessarily a surprise.
Now that China has held the Olympics, South America was the next untapped frontier. How the country bridges the extremes of rich and poor while the world watches is the great challenge that awaits.
In 2007, the city surrounded by mountains, beaches and snarled highways, played host to the Pan Am Games. It was at times spectacular, as the flair and passion of Brazilians were impossible not to embrace.
Lurking in the shadows throughout, however, was the threat of violence and crime which made walking outside after dusk an uneasy prospect.
For the most part, organizers and the complicated host nation did a credible job with an event that was essentially procured to show the power brokers of international sport that it was capable of hosting an Olympics or World Cup of soccer. With the 2014 soccer spectacle in hand, Rio now has both in two years.
Transportation was an issue at the Pan Ams (but at what Olympics isn’t it?) Some athletes complained about their housing and food, but those are fixable faults.
The dangerous suburbs, notoriously over run by drug lords, never caused a serious incident. Security was a bold presence, with machine-gun wielding guards lining highways and at the entrances to stadiums but it was the same in China in 2008.
The venues may not have been as spectacular as the Water Cube and Bird’s Nest of Beijing, but were better than functional. Jao Havelange Stadium, plunked in the middle of one of the slums, was finished just in time for those games and held the track and field competition and some soccer.
The outdoor pool was modern and fast. And famous Maracana Stadium, home to so many impressive Brazilian soccer matches, is a relic but an historic venue that will be a showcase for Olympic soccer.
Lest you think we were joking about beach volleyball ... on a normal day, the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema are crowded with people of all ages playing a game that may be more popular in Brazil than other country. At the Pan Ams, the stands were full for the competition built steps from the ocean in the heart of Copacabana.
Those venues, though spread out, were modern and up to Olympic standards or beyond. For the Pan Am Games, the country spent an absurd $2 billion, but that’s the IOC’s gain. Now they don’t have to go through the usual worry over whether facilities will be built on time.
Of course, there are concerns in a tropical city of some seven million residents with too large a percentage of them living in poverty.
Traffic reaches the point of strangulation for most of the daylight hours as the overworked highway grid weaves its way around and under the city’s many mountains.
And with the squalor that abounds, let’s just say the IOC might want to lay off its “Green Olympics” campaign.
The passionate fans, known for sambaing their way through soccer matches around the globe, became a story in a negative way at the Pan Ams. They reduced a young Canadian gymnast to tears at one point, cheering wildly when she slipped from a balance beam to increase a Brazilian’s chance at a medal.
Like everything about the city, good or bad, the passion can’t be missed.
rob.longley@sunmedia.ca
