Public grants to the Rio organising committee, that should have been paid by July 29, have been held up by two court injunctions which demanded details of how money would be spent.
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Judge Marcia Maria Nunes ruled last Friday that the federal government and the city of Rio de Janeiro could not provide some 270 million reais ($85 million) promised to help pay for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games and next month’s Paralympics unless its accounts are made public.
He continued: “It’s in our Paralympic DNA to see obstacles as an opportunity to do things differently and that’s what we are doing here”.
Now athletes will be given delayed travel grants with at least 10 countries just struggling to get to Rio.
The cuts came in addition to ones previously made together by Paralympic and Olympic officials over the past year, Craven said, noting in the statement that they “are likely to impact almost every stakeholder attending the Games”.
Brazil’s Presidential Chief of Staff Eliseu Padilha announced on August 4, the day before the Rio Olympics’ lavish opening ceremony, that the federal government would provide 120 million reais to the organising committee and the city of Rio would make a further 150 million available.
‘They have dedicated their lives to reaching these Games and we will do our utmost to try and maintain the service levels and scope that they expect at a Paralympic Games’.
He added that the organising committee had experienced poor initial sales for the Olympics, too, and he expected growing local interest in the Olympics to boost Paralympic sales “as we have seen with other hosts before”. “It’s what the athletes deserve and it is what the athletes want after years of training and dedication”. “It is a concern”, said Games spokesman Mario Andrada.
“Never before in the 56-year history of the Games have we faced circumstances like this”, IPC President Sir Philip Craven said.
“It wouldn’t be fair to an athlete to miss the games because the funds didn’t come in time for them to purchase a plane ticket to get to Rio”, Martin Richard, chief of communications for the Canadian Paralympic Committee, told Canada’s Global News earlier this week.
“I believe the performances of the Para athletes will act as a catalyst for social change”.
So to all the athletes who do make it to Rio, good luck!
Repeated cuts to the 22-sport Games, with more than 4,300 athletes expected, have been made over the past 18 months as Brazil struggles with an economic and political crisis. “People power could really determine the outcome of these Games”.
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When the Paralympics start on September 7 in Rio de Janeiro, it will be the fifteenth time that the summer games have been run but the first time they have taken place place in a Latin American nation.
