Disasters Waiting to Strike at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics

by Jane Jacobs

Starting August 5th, athletes will gather from all corners of

the globe to race and compete in the Summer Olympics in Rio de

Janeiro, Brazil. That is, if they can get past the smell.

The games have descended into both a literal and figurative

sewer, especially after rounds of testing by the Associated Press

show that Rio’s Olympic waterways are as filled with pathogens

offshore as they are closer to land, where raw sewage flows into

the city’s waters from rivers and storm drains. Cleaning its

waterways and improving sewage sanitation was of Rio’s

promises upon winning the right to host the Olympics – now,

according to Brazilian officials, that will apparently no longer be

happening.

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It’s not just the athletes who should be worrying about the

state that Rio is in. Concerns about Rio’s crime rates are keeping

tourists from booking tickets to see the games, leaving a huge

number of tickets still unclaimed and a vast amount of tourism

money out of Brazil’s pockets. Worried tourists can’t find much

comfort in the news, however – just last month, Australian

Paralympian Liesl Tesch was robbed of her bicycle at gunpoint

and in broad daylight, not too far from her hotel.

The final nail in Rio’s coffin? Medical officials are so

concerned about outbreaks of the Zika virus that in June, a group

of 150 doctors, scientists and bioethicists signed a letter urging

the World Health Organization to have the Rio Olympics

postponed. The WHO insists that the chances of Zika being

contracted by any of the thousands of visitors to Brazil are slim to

none – but we’re talking about a virus that shows no real

symptoms, and that can also be transmitted sexually.

The modern Olympics are handled with the expectation that

the host nations will, through building Olympic infrastructure,

improve the conditions of their own countries in the process.

Widespread corruption surrounding the Rio Olympics, however,

(especially after the show we had in Sochi in 2014) is starting to

make it seem as though it’s becoming harder and harder for the

world to trust an Olympic host nation with the power that it’s

being given.