Rio Olympics will ride out Brazil crisis

Brazil's deepening economic downturn and political crisis will not affect the 2016 Rio Olympics, the head organizer says, describing the huge task of preparing the city for the Games as well on track.

"As far as the organization and the work -- or the athletes' preparation -- ahead of the Games, (the crisis) has not affected anything," Carlos Nuzman, president of the Rio 2016 committee, told AFP in a recent interview in the northeastern city of Fortaleza.

"Everything is on schedule. Sometimes you'd like things to be further ahead, but sometimes no, since we'd have to pay the maintenance," he said, insisting that Brazil's chaotic preparations for the 2014 football World Cup were a thing of the past.

"We are not guided by the World Cup but by my experience of many Olympics," Nuzman, 73, a former Olympic volleyball player, said.

Brazil is in a steep economic downturn, exacerbated by crisis in President Dilma Rousseff's government and a huge corruption scandal that is centered on oil company Petrobras but has also hit major construction companies involved in the Olympics preparation.
Nuzman said there was no danger of the scandal impeding the Games. "Not one project has stopped. They continue and continue daily."

Even the much criticized levels of pollution in Guanabara Bay, where the sailing and windsurfing events will take place, are not a cause for concern, Nuzman said.

"We have made an effort to have clean waters and in bacteria tests that we've done we could find nothing wrong," he said of the sewage-filled bay.

However, he said that a planned virus test has yet to take place and rejected media pressure on him to demonstrate the water's cleanliness by diving in himself.

"It's not about me getting in or drinking the water, as some want. What I want is to do the best and get the athletes the conditions they need."

- Footballing revenge -

Nuzman, who also heads Brazil's Olympic Committee, said the host country still hopes to break into the top 10 medals rank after having invested about $185 million on preparation of athletes. At the last Games, in London in 2012, Brazil came 22nd in the rankings.
"My life is full of challenges and it was important that after winning the host city we made this goal," he said. "We will fight to get there."

And in addition to the push for medals this time, "the committee now has a team to prepare athletes from 2016 to 2020 and 2024. Brazil has to make use of these Games. We cannot fail," he said.

It's probable that many in this football-mad country would swap all the medals in the world for one gold in the final of the soccer tournament -- even if just to erase the memory of the 7-1 semi-final defeat to Germany in the World Cup last year.

"That 7-1 is history," Nuzman said. "I think the Brazil team, if Neymar is there, will be better. It will be difficult. Everyone knows what this means to Brazil."
Source: AFP