In the next few weeks, August 5-21, the city of Rio de Janeiro is going to host the 31st Olympic Games.
Advertisement
There hasn’t been this kind of reaction against the 2016 Olympics in the streets of Rio de Janeiro but there’s not much excitement about it either.
Over 80,000 police and security staff are being used in Rio, which is double the amount used for the London Games in 2012. Police said anti-government protesters in Duque de Caixas, on Rio’s north side, threw rocks and blocked the torch’s path, and were dispersed with rubber bullets and pepper spray. A video of the incident spurred social media criticism of the police and amplified complaints that the Games ignored the poor.
Demonstrations have erupted in the path of the torch relay in the past few months in several Brazilian cities.
With Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff suspended from office pending her trial in the Senate on charges of breaking budget rules, there have been no requests so far for bilateral meetings with interim President Michel Temer in Rio, the sources said. And the citizens of Rio are yet to feel the benefits of all the preparations for the event.
The political scientist said most people here are not against the Olympics, but indifferent to it.
Big story: The reigning World Cup champion USA team will be going for its fourth consecutive Olympic title, but winning this summer would make the US the first team in history to hold World Cup and Olympic titles at the same time.
And as Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio, held the torch high on his circuit of the area on Wednesday, protesters from the São Gonçalo area continued to threaten to put out the flame.
The symbol of the Olympic Games will visit more towns and return to the city center on Thursday ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony in the famed Maracanã stadium, site of the World Cup final in 2014. More than a million event tickets have not been sold. It will criss-cross the city before being taken into the Maracana Stadium late Friday to light the cauldron in the opening ceremony.
Advertisement
Chinese Olympic-goers have been victims of frequent theft in Brazil, China’s foreign ministry said last week in a warning to its citizens overseas to take greater safety precautions. We will meet athletes from all over the world and while we may play different sports or believe different things, we will all be connected by the distinctly human emotions of the Games.
