Worries over cycling arena readiness

 The Rio Olympics are just two months away and as preparations head into their furious final straight, worries are mounting that delays to the cycling stadium have spun out of control.

The building in the nerve center of the Olympic Park was supposed to have ended in late 2015.

Not only did that not happen, but a test event scheduled for late April and early May was cancelled because of construction delays.

Organizers of the Games running from August 5-21 have replaced these full-blown dress rehearsals with "training days" at the end of June.

That means cycling competitors will not be able to test the track in real conditions, a failure which has angered the already nervous UCI, cycling's world governing body.

"The UCI remains extremely concerned by the repeated delays to the construction of the velodrome, and recently informed the Rio 2016 organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee of its concerns," UCI president Brian Cookson said in a statement to AFP.

"It has been a very difficult project and the fact that these delays have have repeatedly pushed back any kind of trial contest is very worrying," he added.

"There is still a lot to do to ensure cyclists can compete in the best possible conditions," he said. "Time is really running out."

Christophe Dubi, Olympic Games executive director at the International Olympic Committee, told AFP last week that "the timetable is very narrow."

That's a diplomatic way of saying that IOC is very worried.

- Late June -

But organizers -- who say that the rest of the Olympic infrastructure is virtually ready -- downplay the construction problems at the velodrome.

"The track is already there. It was installed more than a month ago. What remains to be done are the finishing touches to the facilities," Rio organizing committee chairman Carlos Nuzman said in an interview.

He spoke in Lausanne, Switzerland as he prepared to present a report to the IOC on the state of readiness for the games.

"City Hall is responsible for monitoring the construction, but I think it will be completed in late June. I do not know exactly which day," he added.

"The workers are going at it intensely. A late June delivery is what we want and what we had spoken of with Cookson," Nuzman added.

The cycling arena construction suffered a setback in March because of what were described as logistical problems in bringing in the pine wood from Siberia used to build the track. Organizers said it was 12 days late.

- Design flaws? -

But there are other problems, too.

The Rio City Hall recently decided to sever the contract it had with Tecnosolo, the contractor in charge of the project and reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy, and give it solely to a subcontractor, Engetecnica, which had been involved in the project for months.

City Hall said the goal was to wind up a project that it said was 88 percent completed.

The project is now expected to finish in June, it said in a statement.

But Tecnosolo does not see things that way, and sued City Hall.

It argues that mistakes in the original design of the project by city officials led to a four month delay in the start of building, Brazilian press reports say.

"There was no mistake in the project," City Hall said.

Rather, there was "evolution in the construction technique, with changes, especially with regard to the foundations, to speed up the assembly of the arena," a statement added.

"Changes in the physical and financial timetable were made so the company could win time in the construction process. No work had to be redone."
Source :AFP