A sofa litters Guanabara Bay along with other trash in Rio de Janeiro. Photo / AP
A sofa litters Guanabara Bay along with other trash in Rio de Janeiro. Photo / AP
Rio de Janeiro appears to be making headway in the race to be ready for next year’s Olympics, writes Laura McQuillan
There's an almighty stench wafting across the waterways of Rio de Janeiro, a big beach paradise with an Olympic-sized poo problem.
With 361 days until the Games' opening ceremony, this unhurried city is, for once, in a rush - digging, hammering and painting its way up to gold-medal standard.
Rio's quietly turned around its preparations from last year's crisis point, and there's little doubt it will be ready in August 2016 - no mean feat for a city where efficiency and punctuality are remarkably scant.
But the clock's run out for its competition waterways, and experts warn athletes could come away from next year's Games with more than medals and memories.
A year ago, Rio was on track to take Athens' crown for 'worst ever' Olympic preparations. That frank criticism from International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates came as IOC experts swooped in to micromanage the city through missing venues, infrastructure hold-ups and serious coordination issues.
It made the difference. Today, the new Olympic Park, athletes' village and sporting arenas are surging towards completion.
The panic's faded, too, for the New Zealand Olympic Committee.
Now on his fourth visit to Rio, Kiwi chef de mission Rob Waddell says there's been significant progress since the end of last year.
"Obviously, early on there were concerns about things like venues being completed in time," he says. "My last visit, I think we got a lot more comfort that things were tracking pretty well in that regard."
Coates has changed his tune. "Rio will deliver a spectacular Games but they do not have a day to lose."
Kiwis are helping put Rio's new venues to the test, taking part in a months-long series of events to iron out the kinks before next August.
Over the past five days, 22 young New Zealand rowers competed in the world junior championships at Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon - a lake with historic water-quality challenges, including sewage contamination, E. coli and algal blooms.
Earlier this year, 32 tonnes of rotting fish were scooped from its waters, but the calm competition setting gave no hint of its troubles. If you didn't read the news, says rowing high performance manager Alan Cotter, "you wouldn't know the water isn't like Karapiro".
Late last month, media were given their first glimpse of the new Olympic Park, home to a cycling velodrome, aquatic stadium and tennis centre, plus half a dozen arenas for gymnastics, basketball, martial arts and fencing, and several Paralympic sports.
Although still under construction, several are nearly complete - the seats still plastic-wrapped to protect against dust while work continues. Outside, mounds of gravel and dirt, and piles of bricks will soon give way to grass.
Rodrigo de Freitas Lake in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. An Associated Press analysis of water quality found dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from human sewage. Photo / AP
Across town, in the military neighbourhood of Deodoro, construction last year fell six weeks behind schedule on the second- largest Olympic zone, encompassing a new modern pentathlon park, hockey stadium, equestrian venue, and an X-Park for BMX, mountain biking and canoe slalom.
It will also host rugby sevens' first Olympic outing, 92 years after the 15-a-side game last featured in the Olympics - to the delight of football-mad Brazilians, who are swapping codes in droves.
The NZOC were alarmed at the delays during a visit late last year but Waddell says work is currently "flat out".
"Probably the only thing that still didn't have any work being done on it [in May] was the rugby venue, but it is a temporary venue and we've been assured by the organising committee they're pretty focused on that and they're confident about meeting the timelines."
Golf is also making an Olympic comeback, after more than a century. It has the honour of being the only sport with its own protest group. Occupy Golf, born from the local council's decision to build the golf course on an area of environmental protection, alleges dirty deals between the mayor and property developers. Their tents have long since been packed away - and the golf course is now all but completed - but the protesters say they aren't going anywhere ahead of the Olympics.
Beyond the white sand and palm trees of the world-famous Copacabana lies Rio's shame: a harbour of raw sewage, rubbish and floating oddities, including the odd animal carcass, has been left to stew for decades.
Cariocas, as Rio's locals are known, happily swim year-round at the harbour spots where triathletes and swimmers will compete next August. But they avoid the beaches near the malodorous sailing marina - and urge visitors to follow suit.
In January, city officials abandoned a long-standing pledge to treat 80 per cent of the sewage in Guanabara Bay by Games time - yet they maintain the waterway is safe. "There are no problems for the Olympic Games-related sanitation," Rio's water and sewage chief told the Herald on Sunday. "There has been an evolution in recent months and it will be even better at the time of the Games."
A triathlete trains in the waters off Copacabana Beach, despite published warnings that water in the area was unfit for swimming. Photo / AP
He says the "large geographical latrine" is full of hazards for athletes, like "getting hit by some kind of floating waste; plastics, pieces of furniture, televisions, tyres; or having a problem [like] gastroenteritis, fungal infections or, in severe cases, Hepatitis A".
Moscatelli's backed up by a recent study that found dangerously-high levels of bacteria and virus contamination, and experts say athletes face serious health risks.
Rio 2016 organisers were caught off-guard. They had been following World Health Organisation guidelines that didn't require them to test for viruses but, at the WHO's behest, they are now.
High Performance Sport NZ has carried out their own monitoring, and Kiwi athletes have been vaccinated against Hepatitis A in the build-up to the Games.
But there were certainly no complaints from triathletes after last Sunday's Olympic qualifier.
"It was absolutely perfect," Ryan Sissons said. "It's probably one of the better places I've swum, so I think it's all a bit too much media hype."
Given Rio's dirty water problems, there's a degree of irony in the name of the athletes' village - Ilha Pura, or Pure Island. The luxury complex's 3604 apartments will become an upmarket residential community post-Olympics, boasting swimming pools, sports courts, a cinema and beauty salon across a whopping 800,000sq m of land.
Organisers say the project is 89 per cent complete, and Waddell is clearly impressed.
"If that gets behind, and if that's looking like it's not going to be completed, that's obviously the biggest concern, but it looks like the village is going to be high-quality accommodation."
Spectators, on the other hand, face an uncertain stay.
The council's ditched a plan to put 10,000 visitors up on cruise ships, and in apartments and even 'love motels', instead signing a deal in March with rentals website, AirBnB.
Since then, the company says their listing numbers haven't much changed, but expect more hosts to come on board in the six months before the Olympics.
Alois Jnabl of Austria exits the water during the men's triathlon ITU World Olympic Qualification Event in Rio de Janeiro. Photo / AP
Well away from the city's tourist spots, Rio's notorious favelas still stack the city's hillsides, enjoying the best views in town.
They're no longer the crime hotbeds of decades past, due to a council-run "pacification" project that has brought harmony to some, and violent police confrontations, forced evictions and home demolitions to others.
The city's public spaces, on the other hand, have seen a recent wave of stabbings, including daylight
attacks on tourists. Two British Olympic sailors were mugged at knifepoint last year.
Brazil's murder rate is 25 times that of New Zealand, with more than 400 people killed in Rio each month, and local authorities say they'll be doing their best to ensure visitors don't become statistics.
They have unveiled an 85,000 - strong force of police officers and military troops to patrol the city and sporting venues during the Games.
Rio's major events security boss, Roberto Alzir, says visitors also have to play their part - avoid wearing jewellery, carrying valuable objects or flashing wads of cash. And remember, don't drink the tap water.
With the finish line in sight, Rio 2016's Mario Andrada says organisers must not run out of steam.
"Overall, we're doing fine, but the climbing of Everest starts now - we still have a lot to do, we can't be complacent."
The feeling is the same in the Kiwi team.
"We're doing everything we possibly can [to win], I can assure you of that," Waddell says. "I think, until you've got the benefit of hindsight, it's impossible to say whether you've got everything right, but I'm confident we're looking at everything we possibly can."
Critics now agree Rio will look the part by next August, although question marks remain over how the slow-paced city will cope with a fast-paced event.
One thing is guaranteed; in the home of Carnaval, you'll always have a good time.
That's why, says Triathlon NZ high performance boss Graeme Maw, the Kiwi contingent is heading to Rio with a "pretty excited, pretty flexible" frame of mind.
"They've got some challenges - that's not going to change, this is Rio. If people come to race in Rio and they expect everything to be clockwork, they'll be derailed.
"We've got empathy for the organisers. This is one heck of a city to try and put the Olympic Games on in."
