Rio will be ready for Olympics: mayor

Rio’s polluted waters where Olympic sailing will take place next year will be in good shape by the time the Games start, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Tuesday (yesterday, Fiji time). The games will be split between four clusters: the main hub in Barra (where the Olympic Park will be), Maracana (where the Opening Ceremony will be), Deodoro (the inland hub), and Copacabana (the base for water sports).

Mario Andrada, a spokesman for Rio’s Olympic organizing committee, says there is “no risk whatsoever” of further contagion. Brazilian officials were similarly confident about the country’s progress on new soccer stadiums before the 2014 Federation Internationale de Football Association World Cup, only for several facilities to remain incomplete mere days before the event began. “We’re installing a health cordon and for the past six months we have not had (Olympic) horses here”, said the head of veterinary services for the Rio Olympics, Juliana Freitas.

Tony Baines, joint md of corporate buying at Aldi, said: “Since we opened our doors in the UK in April 1990, we’ve worked hard to establish British roots, sourcing locally where possible and building long-term relationships with British suppliers”.

NBC will launch promotional advertisements for the Summer Olympics beginning Wednesday across its networks, a move to generate excitement among viewers one-year in advance of the event.

Paes and Nuzman were peppered throughout the news conference by persistent questions about the quality of Rio’s Olympic waters.

Bach then followed by praising the legacy and predicting how next year will be “Brazil’s moment”, where the world will be “enchanted by the warmth of the Brazilian people, the vibrant and diverse culture”.

“We’ve heard from athletes that have swum with fish”, he said, adding, “so there are some discrepancies”. Brazil is teetering on the brink of recession, amid a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal at the state-run oil giant Petrobras, while the local currency, the real, has plunged more than 30 per cent against the dollar over the past year.

“Brazil isn’t all about lack of planning, overpricing and with no commitment to dates and times”, Mayor Eduardo Paes told Reuters.

Accordingly, the PGA has adjusted its 2016 schedule to accommodate the Rio Games (with golf expected to be played from August 11 to 14), moving the PGA Championship to late July.