Despite delays, Australians ready to move to Rio village

Canada will send 313 athletes to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics determined to improve on the one gold medal won at the London Summer Games.

Chef de Mission of the Australian Olympic Committee Kitty Chiller confirmed to the Sydney Morning Herald 410 Australian Olympians could not be move into Rio’s Olympic Villages on Sunday as planned. She listed seven other delegations: Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium, Brazil, Japan and the Netherlands.

“We made a decision to do a “stress test” where taps and toilets were simultaneously turned on in apartments on several floors to see if the system could cope once the athletes are in-house”, Kitty Chiller, the Australian Olympic Committee’s chef de mission, said in a statement published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

View of an athlete’s room at the Olympic and Paralympic Village for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, July 23, 2016.

Rio officials said 1,600 people from 115 countries were living in the village on Monday – including 400 athletes.

When the first contingents from Australia, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States discovered leaking bathrooms, faulty wiring and unlit common areas in the athlete village, they complained quickly and publicly.

The Dutch delegation has said it is looking into billing the Rio 2016 organisers for extra costs related to problems at the Olympic Village.

Paes sarcastically said he was tempted to put “a kangaroo jumping outside” the Australians’ building to make them happy. The delegation is moving staff and personnel out of the athletes’ village to prioritize the athletes when they eventually return.

It was a drastic change of tone from Chiller, who, with her team, found more than 200 initial problems with the accommodation. It is the responsibility of the organizing committee to deliver a safe and well-functioning village …

Argentina is sending a team of 213 athletes to Rio. But Brazil wouldn’t be the first nation to pull off an Olympic Games by the skin of their teeth. Worries about security, the Zika virus and Brazil’s economic crisis might discourage some travellers and VIP guests and around 28 percent of Olympic tickets have yet to be sold.

Tancred said Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes would hand the team an official key on Wednesday.

“As for now, we have nothing relevant to report about what was done in the environmental area”, said one of the officials.

The problems at the village are not unlike those that have occurred before other big spectacles in Brazil, such as the 2014 World Cup, when stadium crews were still wielding paint brushes and screwdrivers even minutes before kickoff. “There are social, economic and political problems but I am confident they are making every effort to meet the expectations of all countries”, Lewis said.