Can they survive the polluted water – or the polluted air?
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And the Olympic Games may be over. Are Rio and its venues chaotic? Several times, I gave a joking answer that was only half-joking: that the Rio Olympics are like a three-week Mentos commercial.
In Rio, the Mentos-grade “catastrophes” I saw in person were unquestionably minor – a bag slipping off a counter is narrowly saved by a stranger, for instance. They went out and whooped the rest of the world for a fortnight. Both lived up to the considerable pre-Olympics hype and delivered under the hottest of global spotlights with class and aplomb.
In the midst of its worst economic recession since the 1930s, Brazil’s opening and closing ceremonies relied more on the country’s unique talents and natural beauty and less on expensive technology. Those results led to talk of NBC having to dole out “make goods” – free ad time given to advertisers that didn’t get their initial messages out to as many people as they’d paid to. In Rio’s favelas, violence surged this month. He won six in Rio, while Biles and USA swimmer Katie Ledecky each won five to lead a big haul from American women. In Rio, a high-ranking International Olympic Committee official was arrested under suspicion of being part of a ticket-scalping scheme.
And then there was Ryan Lochte.
But the games must also be judged from a local perspective.
The theme of the show was “Brazilians can do with their bare hands”, a nod to the emerging economy of the world’s fifth largest nation.
One of the biggest cheers of the night came when Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared dressed as computer game character Super Mario, rising out of a huge green pipe in the stadium. Two years ago, as the FIFA World Cup host, the Selecao were humiliated in front of their home fans in an epic 7-1 drubbing by eventual champion Germany.
That’s the nature of hosting the Olympics, to some extent: The nuanced vibe of a city can’t be captured by an aerial “spider camera” far above everyone’s heads, and the glare of worldwide media attention is often blind to the small moments of patience and grace that locals share with visitors.
Still, the rainfall at the closing ceremony had little effect on the spirits of the performers who praised towering creative figures and thinkers, such as the prolific composer Heitor Villa-Lobos; the landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx; and Niede Guidon, the archaeologist whose discoveries in the remote caves of northeast Brazil are challenging long-held beliefs about the peopling of the Americas.
The 2016 Olympics has been a true turning point for broadcasters around the world shifting from linear broadcasting to streaming. Bolt retained his title as the World’s Fastest Man for the third straight Olympiad, winning triple golds in the 100- and 200-meter races and the 4 x 100 relay just as he did in Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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Transportation problems had forced me and three other journalists – one from China, one from Australia and one from Brazil – to take an unusual route to the ceremony, and we found ourselves being let off near Ipanema Beach, far from Maracana Stadium. As with the rest of the futuristic preview, it also hinted at the innovation, originality and creativity that we can expect from Tokyo 2020. If both truly ended their respective careers in Rio, we may never see the likes of them again. As absurd as our problems seemed – a group of strangers banded together on a quest, getting to know each other as they dealt with security searches and setbacks – we knew it would all work out.
