USOC OFFICIALS WORK TO EASE RIO JITTERS
Everyone, it seems, is worried about Rio. Athletes, coaches, families, spectators, sponsors, you name it. Never before has an Olympics faced such a laundry list of serious problems little more than a month before they are set to begin.
On Thursday, the leaders of the U.S. Olympic Committee went out of their way to try to assuage those fears, attempting to put the best face possible on the 2016 Summer Olympics in their last scheduled news conference before arriving in Rio.
“I guess what I would say is that I’m bringing my family down there,” USOC CEO Scott Blackmun said at a regularly scheduled news briefing during the U.S. Olympic swimming trials. “I feel like we’re going to have a lot of security. I feel like the safest place in the world is going to be the village and the competition venues, so I think our athletes will be among the safest people in Rio just because of all the security that’s going to be around them.
“I’m candidly not concerned about it,” he continued. “I’m not concerned about it for my family. That doesn’t mean you don’t take all the necessary precautions that you can take when you are down there. I feel very, very good about heading down to Rio. I can’t wait to go, and every single member of my immediate family is coming with me.”
Blackmun was asked if he was certain that U.S. athletes, coaches and families would be safe in Rio.
“You can never be certain of a question like that,” he replied. “I’m not certain my kids will be safe at home tonight. At the end of the day, it’s a complicated world and there is risk associated with everything.
“But we’ve had a number of trips down to Rio in the recent past. … We feel really good about Rio’s preparation. We’re very excited about it. There’s risk associated with any Games, whether it’s terrorism or crime or transportation, whatever it is, you’re always going to have something. We’re very excited about the opportuni- ty to go down there. Our expectation is that when the opening ceremonies come on Aug. 5 that we’re all going to be focused on that as opposed to these kinds of things.”
If that sounds overly optimistic, and it certainly might be, Blackmun really had no other choice. He is the leader of the world’s largest and most important national Olympic committee. Even if he were concerned, and there’s no public indication that he is, he would be watching his words carefully, especially with just 35 days to go until Rio.
Fears about the Zika virus have been a constant topic of conversation in the USA for months — but not among U.S. athletes with whom Blackmun has spoken.
In March, Blackmun said he had not heard from a single athlete about Zika. On Thursday, he said he has now heard from a grand total of one athlete, through that athlete’s agent. He said he referred the agent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with whom the USOC is working on the issue.
Rio’s troubles share the summer stage with continuing concerns about Russian doping. Blackmun said that the world sports anti-doping system is “broken,” and he called on more Russian sports delegations to be banned from Rio if a widely anticipated commission report finds in mid-July that they, like Russian track and field, participated in a state-sponsored, systemic doping program.
“The system needs to be fixed,” he said. “This is a threat to the very meaning of the Olympic movement. I think that whether it’s more independence or more quality around the globe regarding how doping rules are enforced, there’s a lot of room for progress.”
The international track and field federation (IAAF) has banned Russian track and field athletes from the Rio Games. What’s next?
“We have to wait and see what the commission report says when it comes out in the middle of July,” Blackmun said. “We fully support the action that was taken by the IAAF. To the extent that there is evidence that other sports were involved in that, we certainly hope those (international federations) take similar action to what the IAAF did.”