Logistics no mean feat when catering for Olympics in Rio

SOME Olympic athletes seem to be superhuman, while others aren’t human at all. In Rio de Janeiro this week, more than 300 horses are arriving to compete in games that have provided a globespanning challenge for the world’s logistics and freight industries.

The 2016 games will involve roughly 30 million items, everything from condoms to firearms, with most marshalled from around the world and sent to Brazil on 6 000 cargo containers arriving by sea, air and ground.

About 70 percent of the imports came via container ship and 25 percent by air, withthe rest travelling on trucks, said Fernando Cotrim, the logistics director for the Rio games. From China came the 40 000 beds and 40 000 mattresses for an Olympics Village.

But mattresses are easy. Some deliveries are more delicate. Safe horse transport was one of a trio of security challenges confronting organisers, Cotrim said.

Lastly, athletes’ fluid samples used for doping tests require heavy security protocols, especially given allegations regarding the Russian team in the run up to the games.

But it’s the horses that really require the greatest logistical lift, literally and figuratively.

The first of a dozen horsetransport flights by Emirates SkyCargo left London’s Stansted Airport on July 29 for the almost 12-hour flight to Rio. Brazil-bound horses are also being flown from Liege, Belgium, Miami and New York. – Bloomberg