IOC grills organizers on traffic, security
RIO DE JANEIRO – With the Rio de Janeiro Olympics set to open, worried IOC members grilled top organizing officials about traffic jams, water pollution, security, and the absence of signage that gives the games its own distinct look.
International Olympic President Thomas Bach also turned up the pressure Wednesday by talking straight to organizing committee president Carlos Nuzman and CEO Sidney Levy, who tried to soothe almost 100 IOC members.
“It’s delivery time,” Bach said. “Here we go now. It really starts. We are very confident we will celebrate great games here in Rio and the world will be surprised to see what will happen here.”
Bach also cautioned: “All praise is premature now. ... It’s too early to celebrate.”
Prince Albert of Monaco asked about Rio’s severe water pollution, which soils Olympic venues for sailing, rowing, canoeing, triathlon and open-water swimming. Rio treats about half of its raw sewage, dumping the rest into the waters surrounding the area of 12 million people.
“The media has said a lot about the preparations of these games, and they say a lot about the levels of pollution,” Albert said. “How worried should we be?”
Rio spokesman Mario Andrada repeated assurances that bacterial pollution levels fall within World Health Organization guidelines. However, organizers have been criticized for the astronomical viral levels in the waters, and for not testing for this kind of pollution. Then there’s surface debris. “We do have a few problems with the floating garbage,” Andrada acknowledged, explaining plans to use a dozen garbage collection boats in the sailing venue. Rio is also using barricades to block the flow of garbage from streams, and helicopters to spot garbage flows.