On Friday August 5, the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro will commence the Games of the XXXI Olympiad. And while the Olympics usually mark a time of celebration of the human spirit, international peace and a brief televised respite from the horrors of the world, this year's Summer Olympics have been marked with controversy after controversy.
Apart from one-off mishaps — which, admittedly are to be expected for an international event — like the acting governor of Rio admitting to the press that the games could be a "big failure," or soldiers shooting and killing a jaguar during a torch lighting ceremony — there are four main running controversies clouding this feel-good hit of the summer.
Well There's The Doping
The Rio Olympics seem to be blessed with not one, but two doping scandals. Which, given their severity — literally the entire Russian track and field squad and the whole lab dedicated to drug testing during the games have been banned — might suggest we're only scratching the surface here?
So, how did the entire Russian olympic team get banned for performance enhancing drugs?
Let's flash back to June, when the governing body for track and field events, The International Association Of Athletics, barred Russian athletics competitors from competing in Rio. The Guardian's Owen Gibson reports:
The IAAF’s decision, accepted unanimously by the 24 voting members of the IAAF Council, was damning and concluded that it was impossible to tell whether Russian athletes were clean or not because the system had not been sufficiently reformed.
“The deep seated culture of tolerance [or worse] for doping that got the Russian Athletics Federation [RusAF] suspended in the first place appears not to have changed materially to date,” it said.
A month later, the World Anti-Doping Agency released a shocking report, implicating the Russian government in a state-sponsored doping program that involved multiple sports, hundreds of athletes and ran for years. ESPN reports:
The investigator, Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, dubbed Russia's program the "disappearing positive methodology" in the report, which was released Monday by the World Anti-Doping Agency[...]
McLaren said out of 577 positive sample screenings, 312 positive results were held back -- or labeled "Save" by the lab workers -- but that was only a "small slice" of the data that could have been examined. More than 240 of the 312 "Saves" came from track and field and wrestling, but other sports involved included swimming, rowing, snowboarding and table tennis.
[ESPN]
In the wake of WADA's findings, the International Olympic Committee, the governing body behind the games, is deliberating over just what sort of punishment to levy against Russia. The New York Times' Rebecca R. Ruiz reports:
The International Olympic Committee, under fierce pressure to respond aggressively to a doping scheme that corrupted the results of the past two Olympics, said on Tuesday that it was exploring legal options to discipline Russian athletes ahead of the coming Rio Games and had appointed five-person disciplinary commission[...]
In a statement, the I.O.C. said it “will explore the legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the right to individual justice.”
Even after intense pressure outside pressure from WADA and a dozen-odd anti-doping agencies, the IOC eventually decided to not issue a blanket ban of all Russian athletes, instead letting each sport's governing bodies decide the fates of the competitors:
"I think in this way, we have balanced on the one hand, the desire and need for collective responsibility versus the right to individual justice of every individual athlete," IOC President Thomas Bach said on a conference call.
"In this way we are protecting the clean athletes because of the high criteria we set. This may not please everybody, but this result is one which is respecting the rules of justice and all the clean athletes all over the world."
[Reuters]
While it may seem like the IOC is granting leniency, not issuing a blanket ban is terribly unfair and weak, argues The Guardian's Owen Gibson:
But faced with the opportunity to make a powerful stand, however painful it might have been, the IOC instead chose obfuscation, confusion and chaos.
Less than a fortnight before the opening ceremony, international federations for the 28 Olympic sports will now be asked to assess all their Russian entrants to see whether they have been subject to sufficient international testing outside their homeland.
It is impossible to see how consistency will be maintained across the various sports. Some have already indicated they plan to take a more lenient view than the IAAF, which decided that all but two Russian athletes – one of them Stepanova – had been so tainted by the system that they should be banned.
On top of Russia wide-scale doping controversy, the lab responsible for all the drug testing during the games was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency six weeks before the opening ceremony. Shockingly, this isn't the first time the lab has run into issues, reports The New York Times' Rebecca R. Ruiz:
The lab has a prior disciplinary record and is one of a handful of labs that have had their certification to conduct drug testing revoked in WADA’s 17-year history. Among those is Moscow’s antidoping lab, which was disciplined last fall following accusations of a government-run doping program in Russia...
The lab’s previous suspension coincided with the 2014 World Cup, forcing organizers to send athletes’ doping samples to Switzerland for testing. FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, bore the cost.
To round it out, here's everyone's favorite late night righteous indignation machine John Oliver explaining the Rio Doping Problem with his trademark balance of serious sentences punctuated with jests and jibes.
He really tore that controversy apart! It sucks that this will not change anything because Getting Mad About Doping won't stop coaches and organizations from preying upon talented young athletes who are fed the shit sandwich of "dope or someone else will and thus end your career." Makes for great television though.
Zika Fears Aren't Going Away
Current estimates put the number of those infected with Zika, a virus transmitted by mosquitos that causes rare birth defects, at 1.5 million, leading to some 3,700 cases of microcephaly. For perspective, the last big Zika outbreak infected 20,000 on the island of French Polynesia. So yes, Zika is very much still a public health hazard heading into the game.
According to the World Health Organization, the scale of the Zika outbreak is already too large for an international event like the Olympics to alter it's course one way or another. Cancelling the Olympics would have very little effect the WHO says:
Based on current assessment, cancelling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the international spread of Zika virus. Brazil is 1 of almost 60 countries and territories which to date report continuing transmission of Zika by mosquitoes. People continue to travel between these countries and territories for a variety of reasons. The best way to reduce risk of disease is to follow public health travel advice.
[The WHO]
What's more, a recent paper published in The Lancet argues that Rio is a relatively low-risk city in terms of Zika infections:
In summary, available evidence indicates that for games participants, risk of exposure to Zika virus and subsequent adverse health outcomes will be low, in a relatively low-risk part of Brazil at a low-risk time of year. To quote the ECDC risk assessment: “the density of dengue cases in Brazil is very low in the southern hemisphere, from mid-June to mid-September. Therefore, a low risk of vector-borne transmission of Zika virus infection during the Olympic Games is expected by analogy with dengue transmission involving the same vectors.” Just how low is shown in a modelling study published in April, which puts the risk of Zika virus infection for tourists visiting Rio during the 3 weeks of the Olympic Games at 1·8 per million tourists, which equates to one or two cases among games visitors, although the model does not account for the potential for sexually transmitted infection.
That said, Simon Romero and Rebecca R. Ruiz report in the New York Times that if the organizers really wanted to tackle the Zika problem, they would have needed to start years ago, before Zika was even a public health threat:
“It’s a step in the right direction to inspect facilities, but this is something that should have been done on a broader basis five years ago, not just in the months before the Games,” said Carlos Granato, an infectious diseases specialist at the Federal University of São Paulo. “Mosquitoes persist in a multitude of areas around Rio and other Brazilian cities, so simply keeping Olympic venues free of them is not enough.”
So far, the only athletes to pull out of the Olympics over Zika concerns are men. Northern Irish golfer Rory McIlroy was the first to excuse himself, then Australia's Jason Day, followed by Graeme McDowell who turned down the chance to replace McIlory and finally Northern Ireland's Shane Lowry who, understandably, was just married and would like to start a family. Outside of golf, American cyclist Teejay van Garderen will also not compete over Zika fears.
Other athletes have voiced their uneasiness with competing. After earlier reservations, Hope Solo told CNBC that would "begrudgingly" compete:
I strongly believe that no athlete should be put into this position — to decide between your Olympic dreams and your own health," Solo told "Squawk Box" on Tuesday.
[CNBC]
Spain's Pau Gasol, too, initially had reservations, but found the duty owed to his country too strong, though he admits he will freeze his sperm before leaving for the games:
"My commitment to the national team is greater than my fears over what might happen," Gasol wrote in an article published Saturday in the Spanish newspaper Marca. "My feelings of passion and responsibility toward my national team, my sport and my teammates are huge. They have always been and always will be. My first instinct in that sense has always been to want to be with the national team each summer."
[NBC]
And while being extremely understanding of the decisions of her fellow athletes, Serena Williams expressed disappointment in those dropping out:
“I do, I think it is sad. But at the same time I obviously understand where they're coming from and how they feel. Part of me feels that way, too, which is why I'm going in, you know, with a whole mindset of how do I protect myself, how do I prevent and also raise awareness for this. That's kind of how I'm looking at it.”
The Water Venues Are Polluted
Concerns over Zika may be overblown, but the risk of sickness and disease from Rio's three outdoor water venues — Guanbara Bay, Copacabana beach and the Rodrigo de Freitas lake — is real.
Over a year ago, the AP published revelations of raw sewage severely contaminating Rio's water venues.
Extreme water pollution is common in Brazil, where the majority of sewage is not treated. Raw waste runs through open-air ditches to streams and rivers that feed the Olympic water sites.
As a result, Olympic athletes are almost certain to come into contact with disease-causing viruses that in some tests measured up to 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach.
Six months after the first test results were publish, the AP released even more test data, confirming that just about every outdoor water sport will be held in disease and filth:
"Those virus levels are widespread," said Kristina Mena, an expert in waterborne viruses and an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "It's not just along the shoreline, but it's elsewhere in the water. Therefore, it's going to increase the exposure of the people who come into contact with those waters. We're talking about an extreme environment, where the pollution is so high that exposure is imminent and the chance of infection very likely."
[ESPN]
In the wake of the AP's discovery, the Atlantic's Olga Khazan visited Rio and found that cleaning up the water would require systemic change of the city's very infrastructure:
After visiting Brazil in December and talking with activists, bureaucrats, and everyday people, it became clear to me that this problem won’t be entirely solved by summertime. Officials are still scrambling to implement emergency measures that will clean up the water venues ahead of the Games. If they make progress, the Olympic athletes may be spared stomach cramps and infections. But the people who really suffer from Rio’s shoddy infrastructure will benefit much less—if at all.
As officials struggle to clean up the waters in time for the games, athletes are takes measures of their own — from simple things like liberal use of bleach and keeping their mouths closed, to the US rowing team's use of recently-developed antimicrobial wetsuits. Which, Wired's Luke Whelan reports, won't even do that much:
“They will literally be immersing themselves in very high levels of pathogens,” says Katherine Mena, who researches waterborne pathogens at the UT-Houston School of Public Health. “The infection risk will be pretty high.”
[Wired]
In the event you're still skeptical about the hazard these polluted waters present, one sailor believes he contracted a skin infection from a test event last summer.
Oh And There Was That Recent Presidential Impeachment, Among Other Things
Outside of the Olympic-centric issues, Brazil is a nation experiencing an economic recession not seen in decades, political turmoil at the highest echelon of government and widespread corruption. Which, one could argue, is slightly more pressing than inept doping control, feigned concern over zika, and poopy water.
Let's start our way from the top and work our way down the mottled, rotting structure of Brazilian government.
Remember that whole presidential impeachment scandal a few months back? Well, it turns out the Brazillian economy hasn't exactly snapped back from Dilma Rousseff hiding a growing national debt for years on end:
Brazil’s economy will contract more than previously forecast and is heading for the deepest recession since at least 1901 as economic activity and confidence sink amid a political crisis, a survey of analysts showed.
Latin America’s largest economy will shrink 2.95 percent this year, according to the weekly central bank poll of about 100 economists, versus a prior estimate of a 2.81 percent contraction.
To make matters worse, a recent study from Oxford University found that Rio is some $1.6 billion in cost overruns, a nice fat 50 percent over budget. Which, traditionally, Olympic games are expected to run over budget. That said, Deadspin's Patrick Redford wonders if this the Rio organizers should pat themselves on the back:
Read one particular way, the construction overruns were a strange sort of success. Rio didn’t fuck up any worse than they were expected to. But accepting that means you have to accept a system where $1.6 billion worth of lies baked into its structure is good and worthwhile. If anything, Rio’s pedestrian mishandling of their construction budget throws the rest of their incompetency into sharper contrast. Even a correctly-handled Olympics comes with a oversized tab to pick up at the end.
[Deadspin]
Predictably, despite the billions of "investment" in Rio, ratings industry Moody's doesn't believe the Olympics will pull the country out of recession:
Rio de Janeiro's upcoming summer Olympic games will give the city some lasting infrastructure improvements, as well as a temporary boost in tax revenues, but once the events are over, the country will wake up once again to its deepening recession, said Moody's Investors Service[...]
The Brazilian government expects at least 350,000 people to visit Rio during the Olympics in August and the Paralympic Games in September. This influx of visitors will have positive, albeit short-lived effects, on the city of Rio's tax revenues. However, the overall impact of the games will be minimal for most corporates, consisting of short-lived sales increases and the intangible benefits of marketing exposure at the games.
[Moody's]
Delving further into this mess, Reuter's Caroline Stauffer reports that some $10 billion in Olympic contracts were the result of corruption and graft:
Brazilian police investigating corruption around state-run oil firm Petrobras also plan to probe more than $10 billion of construction contracts for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, a lead investigator said.
Some of the big engineering firms caught up in the Petrobras probe "very probably" broke laws against price-fixing and bribery on contracts to build Olympic venues, said Igor Romario, a Federal Police chief and key figure in the investigation.
[Reuters]
The only folks who's pockets weren't lined were the very people hired to protect the streets of Rio: the police. Those who aren't on the payroll of organized crime are warning tourists to stay away:
Violence is on the rise, and police officers are at loggerheads with the Rio state government after claiming they've not been paid for months.
The message from police to tourists is clear: We won't be able to protect you.
The state's police officers vented their anger Monday with a sign saying, "Welcome to Hell," outside Rio's main airport. "Police and firefighters don't get paid, whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe," the sign said.
[CNN]
The sad reality surrounding Rio is that after the opening ceremony, most will stop caring about poor doping controls, the threat of Zika, the poopy water. The Olympic games will be on, the athletes will put on a brave face and the broadcasters will, as they always do, paint the Rio games as evidence of humanity's ability to unite and triumph over adversity.
But after the closing ceremony wraps, the torch is extinguished, and the rest of the world turns it's gaze to something else — the football! — the Brazilian people will be left with an economy in tatters and a government that will continue to fail them. Only now, they'll have a few stadiums left standing, to remind them the time the world descended upon them for a few weeks, and did nothing.
