Officials from the International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission raced the mayor of Rio in a sprint, dribbled a soccer ball with Pelé and toured the spectacular beach areas and lakes that Rio says it will showcase to the world if it were to win the bid for the 2016 Games.
Questions about crime and transportation had been considered the main concerns with Rio's $14.4 billion bid. But Nawal el-Moutawakel, an I.O.C. member from Morocco who is the chairwoman of the evaluation commission, said Saturday that she saw no weakness in the bid.
"Everything we have seen so far is positive," she said.
The inspectors left saying they were impressed by the commitment of political leaders at all levels to back the bid — including Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. They said that Rio's hosting of the 2014 World Cup was a "good test event" and a potential advantage over three other cities vying for the 2016 Games: Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo.
The seven-day visit was the third for the 13-member evaluation commission, which headed to Madrid on Sunday for the final inspection before the I.O.C. makes its decision, which is scheduled to be announced Oct. 2.
As the I.O.C. determines which city will be the most suitable along technical lines, the Rio organizers are promoting the city's youth, energy and diversity. They say their bid is the only one capable of taking the Olympic tradition in a new direction.
Rio 2016 organizers seized on the idea of the city's being the first on the continent to host the Games. South America is a rapidly growing continent of nearly 400 million people, and Brazil has been among the fastest-growing major economies in the world over the past half-decade.
Da Silva compared an Olympics in Rio to the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara's tour of South America, depicted in the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries."
"Imagine how many Latin Americans would come here by bicycle, on foot, by riverboat, by bus, by plane, in ways you cannot imagine," he later told reporters.
In Chicago, area natives like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama, and even Michael Jordan, showed the I.O.C. inspectors their support through videotaped messages. Brazilian officials showed up in Rio in force last week to make personal pledges to the evaluation commission members. Da Silva was joined by his chief of staff, the president of the central bank and a handful of ministers.
Da Silva guaranteed that Brazil would provide financial guarantees for the bid, an important pledge considering that the country is starting to feel the effects of the global economic downturn through production slowdowns and unemployment. Still, organizers said they planned to keep average ticket prices for events at $36.
Beyond the emotion, Rio's chances are strong because it hosted the Pan-American Games just two years ago. Da Silva said that between the facilities built for the Pan-American Games and the planned investments for the World Cup, the city would be more than 75 percent prepared for the Olympics.
Organizers see the Games as potentially transformative. "We are going to use the power of an Olympic and Paralympic Games to transform a city, a country and a continent," said Carlos Osório, the secretary general of the Brazilian Olympic bid committee.
Moutawakel said the I.O.C. members "were impressed by how the Games fit perfectly in Brazil's long-term planning and support for the development of the country."
She added, "There is a vision between now and many years yet to come, and these Olympic Games come right in the middle of that global vision."
The inspectors said they were satisfied with the Rio 2016 organizers' plans to improve traffic flow and to provide enough lodging space. Rio organizers promised at least 49,000 rooms in a combination of hotels, anchored cruise ships and new media housing center.
Security remains a paramount concern. The I.O.C. team spent several hours Saturday discussing security with Brazilian officials. Because of time restrictions, they did not make planned visits to favelas, or shantytowns, that ring the city and where drug violence is widespread. Rio is plagued by one of the highest murder rates in the world. The police negotiated temporary cease-fires with drug traffickers to contain violence during the Pan-American Games.
"We have been given reassurance that all that can be done will be done to make Rio a safe city to organize the Games," Moutawakel said.
Rio organizers plan to construct a one-million-square-meter park for extreme and adventure sports, and have committed to building an Olympic Training Center for 22 sports, regardless of whether Rio receives the 2016 bid.
On Friday, the inspectors toured Rio's aquatic center and soccer stadium, and rode on Rio's metro. Moutawakel, who won a gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, raced Mayor Eduardo Paes of Rio in a photo-finish sprint. She later put some soccer moves on Pelé at Rio's famed Maracaña Stadium, the site of the 1950 World Cup final.
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1 comment:
I just wanted you to know that none of the people that you listed are natives of Chicago. Obama is from Hawaii, Clinton is from Arkansas, and Michael Jordan is from North Carolina. It is true though that they have all lived there at one point or another.
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