This place being painted as a dystopian hell will resemble no such thing
It promises to be a jarring juxtaposition.
The noisy lead-up to the Rio Olympics has forecasted a debacle in waiting. Even if you’ve been avoiding the coverage, you probably haven’t been able to escape knowledge of the rough outlines.
To summarize and generalize, problems abound.
There’s super bacteria in the water, rampant crime in the streets, Zika virus in the mosquitoes. And there’s also eco- nomic turmoil — Brazil’s worst recession since the 1930s — exacerbating widespread poverty and fuelling dissent.
“Welcome to Hell,” was the message emblazoned on a banner greeting visitors at one of Rio’s airports recently. It was placed there by police and firefighters protesting their economic situations.
For the thousands heading to the city for the Games, it was simply another in a line of discomforting signs that the first Olympics in South America is going to prove a supremely bad idea.
Given all that the scene has been set with so many landmines, here’s betting that the millions who’ll watch on TV will be in for a surprise.
This place being painted as a dystopian hell will resemble no such thing once the international broadcasters begin beaming their highdefinition signals around the globe. Rio de Janeiro, as seen through the lens of a well-placed camera, can come across as a vision of earthly heaven, complete with Christ the Redeemer presiding from on high. They don’t call it the Marvellous City because it looks like, say, suburban Mississauga.
“It’s such a beautiful city,” Natalie Mastracci, the Canadian oarswoman, said in a recent interview.
Mastracci, who won silver at the London Olympics in the women’s eight, would know. She’ll be making her third trip to Rio as a competing athlete. And her impressions of the place don’t jibe with the pre-Games doom and gloom.
“There’s so much greenery and trees and plants around. And then you have the gorgeous mountains, and the oceanscape right next to you,” Mastracci said. “It’s really quite a stunning city.”
That it is. Which is not to say that its prettiness alone will save it from what could become one of the greatest calamities in Olympic history. The Games have never been held in a place like Rio, in a country like Brazil, which is neither particularly rich nor run as an autocracy. Critics have rightly pointed out that Rio is the most violent city to hold the Games as measured by murder rate. Those are worrying truths.
Still, Rio isn’t exactly a rookie in hosting huge events. It carried off its role as a central hub of the 2014 World Cup of soccer without suffering any lasting embarrassment — unless you count the 7-1 drubbing the home side absorbed at the feet of Germany. And even in nonOlympic, non-World Cup years, Rio, home of the famed annual Carnival, welcomes approximately one million tourists per annum — visitors who come for what Mastracci is talking about, a rare combination of intoxicating natural beauty contained within a tropical beachside metropolis.
For all the problems facing this earthly “Hell,” Rio still ranked No. 3 on TripAdvisor’s list of top South American destinations, behind Buenos Aires and Cusco, Peru.
John Herdman, coach of Canada’s women’s soccer team, said his team’s recent travels to Brazil have gone smoothly.
“We’ve been into Brazil quite a few times over the past four years in preparation for these Games, and we’ve never really seen the challenges people are talking about,” said Herdman. “I’ve been to a couple of Olympics now, and I get the sense they’re never perfect. There’s always a couple of rooms in the village where the water doesn’t work properly, and that’s just the way it is.”
Which is not to say something worse than a faulty faucet could visit the proceedings. Things happen. Violence breaks out. Insanity can wreak havoc. We’ve seen it too often, in too many places where it hasn’t even been forecasted, to forget that hard truth.
But that’s not a global reality, not a South America-specific disclaimer. And organizers have promised a security force numbering 85,000, something like double what was on hand for the London Olympics four years ago, which suggests those wishing to disrupt the proceedings will be at least aiming at a hard target.
As for the rest of us, this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve arrived at an Olympics being told to expect the worst. And it’s understandable why we sometimes need to be reminded of the reason we keep coming back to the Olympics — the reason why we tune in every couple of years to watch sports most of us never otherwise watch.
It’s because, in the wake of prophesies of chaos, the Olympics so often produce unscriptable magic. Usain Bolt wows us. A human-interest story warms us. A formerly obscure athlete charms us. Jon Montgomery wins gold in skeleton and parades through Whistler guzzling beer by the pitcher, and the moment is etched in a national memory.
We see it again and again. And there’s every chance we’ll see it in Rio. For all the portents of doom, there are reasons for optimism. The venues largely appear to be ready; many have been given thorough once-overs in the 44 test events that have been run in past months. (Mastracci said the rowing course, plopped in the middle of the city in a way that’s unusual for a sport usually confined to a lake on the outskirts of the Games, has been successfully tested, even if its sketchy water supply could pose problems).
There’ve been positive reviews of many of the urban renewal projects that have accompanied the construction. There’s a promise, too, that the Games will leave a legacy of improved public transport in a city plagued by traffic nightmares, although it remains unclear if a subway extension key to planning will be running safely when the Games begin.
That’s not to say there won’t be problems. That’s not to say staging a $15 billion sports festival in a city rife with poverty makes sense. That’s only to suggest that, although this is a continent’s first Olympics, this isn’t Rio’s first rodeo. It wouldn’t be a shock if many of those expecting the city to fall on its face end up falling for the place.