One year before Olympics, Rio far behind schedule

By Sam Cowie

SAO PAULO

With Thursday marking exactly one year before the Olympic and Paralympic games are to be held in Rio de Janeiro, only a 55 percent of the necessary works are complete.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says it is happy with progress the city is making to get things ready for the Games, however, and that the work will be delivered on time, despite there not being a minute to waste.  

While the Olympic Park in the upscale neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca is 86 percent ready, the aquatics and hockey centers in the Western Zone neighborhood of Deodoro are just 32 percent and 51 percent complete, respectively.    

“Deodoro first had trouble with the ownership of the land, it took time to find out who exactly it belonged to so the construction could begin,” 

Mauricio Savarese, a Brazilian politics and sports blogger told Anadlou Agency.

“Then the constructors found it difficult to get financing since they were also involved in the corruption scandal at Petrobras,” he said referring to a current major scandal involving politicians, constrictions companies and the state-run oil company.

Most alarming, however, are the enormously polluted waters of Rio’s Guanabara Bay where the sailing events will be held.

The bay is the final destination for much of Rio’s waste, including toilet water and sewage; the result of decades of poor urban planning and mass rural to urban migration.

A recent investigation by The Associated Press found the swimming and boating venues not fit for competition due to high levels of bacteria in the water.

Next August, nearly 11,000 athletes representing 205 Olympic committees will compete for medals in 42 sports.

By comparison, Rio is far behind the pace of London which host the 2012 Games. At the one-year mark before those Olympics, London had completed 88 percent of works.

Rio, however, is still ahead of the pace of Athens, whose Olympic stadium was still being constructed one month before the 2004 Games began, Brazilian magazine Terra reported.

Last year, Rio’s preparations were singled out as the “worst in 40 years” by Olympic Vice President John Coates.

Since then, the city has made significant progress, and last week at an IOC meeting in Kuala Lumpar, Olympic President Thomas Bach said the city is preparing well, although some concerns remain.

"It will be down to the wire but it will be delivered," John Coates told the Australian Associated Press on Wednesday.

When Brazil hosted the World Cup in 2014, several of the 12 stadiums were still under construction in the months leading up to the event.

The stadiums were finished in time and that World Cup was widely regarded as one of the most successful in recent years.