Paes said “we are literally making a miracle happen here”. There are 56 projects needed specifically for the games themselves, such as the construction of the Olympic Village, stadiums, and other venues.
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“In one year from tomorrow we’ll all be overwhelmed by the wonderful opening ceremony and the hospitality”. “We are confident now that these Olympic Games will amaze the world”.
Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes said on Wednesday that the Olympic preparations are all running on time and under budget, and Rio will prove Brazil’s capacity to keep its promises.
Rio’s polluted waters where Olympic sailing will take place next year will be in good shape by the time the Games start, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Tuesday (yesterday, Fiji time). An Associated Press study released last week showed dangerously high levels of viruses in all water-related venues.
Authorities here promised that a cleanup of Rio’s human sewage-strewn waterways would be one of the games’ most enduring legacies, but have since acknowledged that the Olympic targets were out of reach.
To face the onslaught, Rio is assembling the equivalent of eight football fields of sporting gear – “a million items”, Nuzman said – and 45,000 volunteer workers, with 25,000 on call for the Paralympics.
“We have heard from athletes that have swum with fish, so there are some discrepancies”, Nuzman said.
Both men played down questions about the political and economic problems that are now engulfing the country. Paes added that the bad news overshadowing the rest of the country had only highlighted Rio’s Olympic progress.
Paes said that Rio had made an attractive candidate city not because of all its infrastructure but the fact it had so little – and could use the Games to improve.
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Nuzman said Bach made “a huge sacrifice” by flying to Rio after his busy trip in Malaysia to be at the one-year celebration, also due to be attended by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff later.
