There are a handful of iconic sporting venues in the world, and one of them was the centerpiece of the 2016 Rio Olympic games. It needs just one name — Maracanã.
The stadium played host to an incredible opening ceremony, hosted some of the Olympic soccer tournament (including the crazy win by Brazil over Germany), and closed the games down as well. Apparently someone forgot to tell the organizing committee, the Rio state government, and the private companies involved in the stadium that it also needed to keep it up after use too.
According to a report in the Huffington Post, Brazilian paper O Globo has shed some light on the dismal state of the famed stadium since its last use in the Olympic games.
The paper describes missing seats, grass that is patchy and dead, exposed wiring everywhere, and much more. Perhaps the craziest of the report is the fact that cats now seem to have overtaken the facility and can be seen just roaming around in the stadium.
O Globo also reports a strong stench of mold coming from the stadium.
Yes, in just a matter of just over four months, one of the world’s most iconic stadiums has gone from center piece to a piece of trash.
Naturally, no one involved with the stadium wants to take blame for its current state. The state of Rio and the private companies say the stadium still is under the control of the organizing committee, while the organizing committee is saying it is turning over the stadium to the state in accordance to its requirements under contract.
From the Huffington Post piece:
Rio’s state government and the consortium of private companies that took over Maracanã after the Olympics say they are not responsible for maintaining it, and blame the Rio 2016 organizing committee for its current state. The committee told O Globo that it delivered the stadium in the condition required by its contract with the state and construction firms, but has not yet completed necessary repairs.
Sadly, the state of the stadium isn’t the only failing legacy of what many have described as the worst-run Olympic games in history.
According to the Huffington Post, one of the biggest so-called “legacy projects” of the games has already been shut down. That project was a cable-car system for one of many of Rio’s infamous favela’s — the Complexo do Alemão:
In October, the $65 million cable car in the Complexo do Alemão favela ― a supposed Olympic legacy project for the network of poor neighborhoods in Rio’s north zone ― shut down indefinitely because the Rio state government failed to pay the company that maintained it.
Given all that happened leading up to and during the Rio Olympic games, none of this should be surprising to the outside world. Brazilian politics are messed up; corruption runs rampant and the states seem to have little money to do the projects the people desperately need, let alone show off with billions spent on a sporting event.
