Aussies halt move into Athletes Village
The head of Australia’s delegation said Sunday its 700 athletes and staff would not move into rooms at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics for at least two days, citing electrical and plumbing problems in the sprawling Athletes Village less than two weeks before the start of the troubled South American games.
“Electricity and water is not a good combination,” Kitty Chiller, the head of the Australian delegation, told reporters.
She said this was her fifth Olympics, and she came down hard on village preparations.
“I have never experienced a village in this state — or lack of state — of readiness at this point in time,” she said.
Australia’s protest came as the 31-building village, which will house 18,000 athletes and officials at the height of the Games, opened officially Sunday. It was not clear how many athletes were housed in the village.
This is the latest problem for the games, which have been hit by the Zika virus, security threats, water pollution and severe budget cuts.
Chiller and Australian team spokesman Mike Tancred described a wide array of plumbing, electrical and cleaning issues. Tancred said 10 of the 31 buildings were determined to be inhabitable.
“We’re having plumbing problems, we’ve got leaking pipes,” Tancred said. “We’ve got electrical problems. We’ve got cleaning problems. We’ve got lighting problems in some of the stairwells. We did a stress test on Saturday, turned on the taps and flushed the toilets, and water came flooding down the walls.”
Tokyo preps for 2020
Organizers held a ceremony to mark four years to go before Tokyo hosts the 2020 Olympics.
A group of Japanese school children helped put the finishing touches on a giant globe made out of 2,020 origami paper cranes in the ceremony at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
Takashi Yamamoto, the vice governor of Tokyo, also attended. Former governor Yoichi Masuzoe resigned last month for allegedly using political funds for personal purposes.
The 2020 Olympics will take place between July 24 and Aug. 9.
Tokyo defeated Istanbul, 60-36, in the final round of the IOC voting for hosting rights. Madrid was eliminated on the first ballot.
Athletes use connections
Several athletes with limited connections to Brazil will be fulfilling their Olympic dream thanks to Brazil’s shortage of athletes in many of the sports in which it automatically qualified for the Rio Games as host despite a lack of Olympic tradition.
Some have lived away for most of their lives but were born in Brazil. Some were born abroad but have Brazilian parents or grandparents. Some had almost no links to the country but were hired by local federations and became naturalized.
“I would have very slim chances of participating in the Olympics if I hadn’t made the switch to play for Brazil,” said Miriam Nagl, a Brazilian-born golfer who left the country when she was 8 and had always played for Germany. “When this idea came up and I realized that I had a chance to make it to Rio, I started dreaming about being at the Maracana Stadium during the opening ceremony.”
Nagl, 35, who plays in the Ladies European Tour and is No. 444 in the women’s world rankings, said she hadn’t given much thought about representing her native country until being contacted by golf officials after Rio was awarded the Games.