In response to the situation, Rio Mayor Paes made headlines, of the negative kind, cavalierly telling the press, “I nearly feel like putting a kangaroo in front of their building to make them feel at home”.
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At the official welcome ceremony at the Village, Mayor Paes apologized for what he termed was “almost a diplomatic thing”, acknowledging that Australia’s residence was in bad shape.
“It was not a joke, it was a kind of gesture”. Several athletes – as well as other attendees, such as NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, who was expected to cover the games – have said that they are skipping this year’s games due to fears of contagion.
According to the New York Times, both the Australian and Swedish olympic delegations have refused to move into the Athletes Village, citing its “blocked toilets, leaking pipes and exposed wiring”. “This should have been tested a long time ago”, he said.”But the problem is there, and now our task is to fix it as quickly as possible and to ensure everything is safe”.
They’ve also taken the mayor’s advice and put a large replica kangaroo and emu in the entrance.
Rio’s Olympic organizers said such teething problems plagued all Olympic Games and promised that “adjustments” would be made to resolve the problems.
Jiu jitsu is not an Olympic sport, so Lee is not competing in the Games, but the former national jiu jitsu champion has lived in Rio for nearly a year.
“We are progressing. The village is fantastic”, he said.
Rio organizers said Tuesday that 21 of 31 buildings were ready, occupied by 600 athletes and 1,800 staff from 120 countries.
Amnesty International on Wednesday highlighted bloody police violence in Rio by laying 40 body bags in front of the Olympic organizing committee headquarters – each representing people killed by city officers in May alone.
Zika was first reported in Brazil in 2015, though it may have arrived earlier, and is blamed for a surge in cases of microcephaly, a birth defect in which an infant’s skull and brain are unusually small and deformed. The nation’s Chef de Mission, Joseba Barreda, said that the first Venezuelan athletes scheduled to arrive in the village tomorrow may be delayed 48 hours to enable the problems to be rectified.
Key findings from the Yale School of Public Health study on the potential of the Olympic Games in Brazil to further the spread of the Zika virus. “I haven’t had to concern myself with any of the leakages of the water or anything, but walking in there I just couldn’t wipe the smile off my face”, she said.
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“I’m not sure what’s more depressing, the fact this stuff is happening to foreigners so close to the Olympic Games or the fact that Brazilians have to live in a society that enables this … on a daily basis”.
