Normally, the International Olympic Committee would like the public to think everything associated with putting on its games is sunshine and rainbows — even if behind the scenes things were a complete mess and a scramble to the finish.
Hiding the difficulties of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games hasn’t been as easy, and on Thursday IOC vice president John Coates admitted there were many difficulties in getting these games off.
No reasons are more transparent that Brazil’s collapsing economy and its political turmoil over the past few years. It was those reasons Coates cited for the difficulties in producing a quality Olympic Games.
“It’s been very difficult, the most difficult Games we have ever encountered in terms of political and economic background,” he told a BBC radio program on Thursday.
“Seven years ago when [Rio] were selected they were on the verge of being a top five GDP nation in the world. They’re 74th now and it’s been a struggle.”
However, apparently not everyone at the IOC is on board with Coates thoughts on getting to these games. An IOC spokesman tried to downplay what Coates was saying, even hinting that these Games will be looked back upon by history as “landmark Games.”
“I’m very confident that these will be looked back on as landmark Games,” Adams hit back, insisting there were problems in the run-up to every Games. When you have 28 sports putting on their world championships at the same time and having a global audience of three or four billion people, there are difficulties.”
“What’s important is how those difficulties are dealt with. Our Brazilian friends are coming and dealing with them. The first Games in South America is really an important thing for us… not to just talk about universality and solidarity but also to practice it, with [Brazil’s] the economic problems here even more so.”
The lead up to the games was full of political and economic turmoil, and there have been plenty of issues in the first six days of the Rio 2016 Olympics.
From media buses allegedly being shot up and government officials insisting it was gunfire that made windows bust out of the bus, to the water polo and diving venue having issues with the color of its water — these games have been plagued by plenty of issues already.
The issues have been so numerous that the International Business Times has put together a handy list of the 14 things that have gone wrong…and that was already three days ago.
So, who are you going to believe? The one who has been in at the ground level trying to get these Games off, or the one being paid to spin anything and everything in to a positive?
