Australia hit again: computer, shirts stolen at Rio Olympics

It would be a far cry from the disappointment of the London Olympics when Australia only took home one gold and 10 medals in total, and if such a prediction was to come true in Rio, it would exceed its greatest gold-medal tally of eight at the 1956 Games in Melbourne.

Team shirts and a laptop computer belonging to a cycling official have been stolen from the Australian building in the athletes’ village at the Rio Olympics, team chief Kitty Chiller said on Sunday.

“There is no CC-TV in the village”.

Ghana will be presenting 16 first time Olympians; 2 swimmers (Kaya Forson and Abeiku Jackson), 1 weightlifter Christian Amoah, 1 judoka who is UK-based Szandra Szogedi, and 1 boxer Abdul Wahid Omar.

This latest incident comes about a month after two members of Australia’s Paralympic sailing team were robbed at gunpoint while riding bikes at a nearby park.

“That (the robbery) is concerning”, she said, claiming the security presence had since been increased with four private guards on the entrance doors and more noticeable identity checks. She noted that there are still people walking inside the athlete’s village without proper accreditation that poses more question on the security being in placed by the organizers. I’m not accusing anybody but there are a lot of non-accredited workers, cleaners, housekeepers, maintenance workers still walking around.

“What we think has happened, is that a cigarette was thrown in a rubbish bin or on rubbish and that’s what started the fire”, she said, and called for a reminder to be sent to staff that the Village is non-smoking.

But Rio is hardly the only city to be beset by big problems ahead of the games. They noted that an estimated 240 million people travel yearly to areas infected with the virus, and said 500,000 more in Rio was not a major threat.

She said she had received no reports of problems at any of the training sites or venues.

Athletes will then parade through Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium, which hosted 2014’s World Cup Final, before the Olympic flag is raised and anthems performed. “Our IT equipment in our operational space had also been rifled through but nothing had been stolen”, Chiller said.

Visitors to Brazil are advised to wear long-sleeved shirts as a precaution against the mosquito-borne Zika virus linked to birth defects in newborn babies and possible neurological problems in adults.