IOC: Rio’s polluted waters will be fine

There are 56 projects needed specifically for the games themselves, such as the construction of the Olympic Village, stadiums, and other venues.

“I had a caipirinha with him yesterday”, Rio Olympic committee president Carlos Arthur Nuzman said.

Hongkongers may spend more time watching next year’s Olympic Games on their smartphones and tablets instead of TV sets at home.

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

“There will be a legacy to create in this country a culture that things can be done on time”, he said, calling Brazil “a country where everything is delayed, everything is beyond its budget”. “We need to have a situation where we have all, or almost all, of our ten events as possibilities of realistic medal positions if we want to be successful in winning a number of medals next year, and right now I think we’re looking good for that”.

An Associated Press investigation in July found Rio’s waterways are rife with unsafe bacteria and that Rio’s attempt to address the issue has fallen far short.

He claimed reports of water problems had been proven exaggerated because athletes at test events said they saw fish while they were swimming. 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.

The Olympic shooting range, equestrian track and an athletics facility are optimistically slated to be finished by mid-2016, but any delays will prove costly.

Despite these woes, Thomas Bach, head of the worldwide Olympic Committee, this week expressed satisfaction with Rio’s progress. British sailors have been training at the Brazilian venue for over a week ahead of the 2015 Aquece Rio worldwide Regatta – the second official Test Event for sailing – which commences on Guanabara Bay in ten days’ time.

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.