Rio Paralympics Race to Assemble Financing in Days Before Games

With the Rio 2016 Paralympics less than a week away, funding for the Games is still being pieced together after local organizers urged for a taxpayer bailout to plug what they claim are last-minute holes in the budget.

A little background (emphasis added),

Rio’s Olympics (Aug. 5-21) and Paralympics (Sept. 7-18) were supposed to be funded privately by the local Rio 2016 organizing committee through sponsorships, ticket sales and licensing deals. The committee’s website lists its budget as 7.4 billion reais ($2.28 billion), and as recently as late July the committee said its finances were fine.

But in early August, a cabinet official for Brazil’s President Michel Temer revealed to reporters that the local committee was facing a budget shortfall and was seeking urgent financial assistance. The federal government ultimately guaranteed 100 million reais in the form of sponsorship deals with state companies, while the city of Rio has offered 150 million reais.

A Rio judge initially blocked the taxpayer-funded bailout, ruling the privately run Rio 2016 would first have to open its books. But that decision was overturned on appeal, frustrating local prosecutors who had argued the committee should have to provide a full accounting of its revenue and expenses before being granted public funds.

You’d think?

Low ticket sales, disappointing sponsorship, green pools and a long list of issues later, Rio’s Mayor Calls 2016 Olympics a Success.

The thing is,

Only 20% of the 2.5 million tickets for the Paralympics, which run from Sept. 7 to Sept. 18, have been sold. The event’s financing remains tenuous as organizers continue to seek additional sponsors and revenue from last-minute ticket sales.

Rio’s local government and Brazil’s federal government have pledged a combined 250 million reais ($77 million) to bail out the Rio 2016 organizing committee, which says it is short on cash to run the Paralympics. The committee has declined to open its books, and recently won a court battle to keep its finances private.
. . .
Even with the promise of taxpayer-funded help, the International Paralympic Committee is bracing for cuts that are “likely to impact nearly every stakeholder attending the Games,” Philip Craven, the committee’s president, said last week. IPC officials said transportation, media facilities and spectator services are likely to be affected.

Too late to call the whole thing off, but, after this, isn’t it time to end the Olympics?

Here’s the updated story:

Two American swimmers were pulled off their flight to the United States by the Brazilian authorities and detained for several hours on Wednesday night, Olympic officials said. It was the latest indication that the police were skeptical of the swimmers’ claims that they had been held up at gunpoint during the Rio Games.

“We can confirm that Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were removed from their flight to the United States by Brazilian authorities,” a spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee said. “We are gathering further information.”

The men were released after agreeing to remain in the country and to speak with investigators about the episode on Thursday, according to officials with the United States Olympic team.

In a case that has made headlines around the world, the gold medalist Ryan Lochte said that after leaving a party early Sunday, he, Mr. Conger, Mr. Bentz and one other American swimmer were robbed by men claiming to be police officers.

The idea that such prominent athletes could be robbed by officers during the Olympics was a huge embarrassment for Brazil, underscoring longstanding concerns about holding the Games in a crime-plagued city like Rio de Janeiro.

But questions about the Americans’ testimony to the police turned that embarrassment into anger, with many Brazilians wondering whether the athletes had lied about the episode and smeared their country’s reputation.

Here are some facts:

1. Brazil’s intentional murder rate is one of the highest in our hemisphere.
2. During the buildup to the Olympics, and after the inauguration, body parts have washed on shore.
3. The number of homicides in Rio state was up 15 percent in the first four months of 2016 compared with last year.
4. Law enforcement forces are so stressed that 85,000 armed forces and police are on duty during the Olympics, not including thousands of counter-terrorism and intelligence operatives and analysts from other countries.
5. The Rio Olympics were were 51% over budget, to the tune of $1.6 billion, the month before they opened. The final tab will be even higher.

Now that we’ve established that Brazil has diverted huge amounts of human capital and treasure to the Olympic games, let’s look at the swimmers’ story.

Either the swimmers were mugged by men in police uniforms, or they weren’t. Remember: they didn’t want to report it to the police.

If they were, it is certainly cause for embarrassment: Pulling crime victims out of their scheduled flights, holding them in location(s) unknown, and preventing them from exercising their free will ought to embarrass Cariocas otherwise too jaded to the sight  of severed limbs washing ashore.

If they weren’t, they may be liable for criminal penalty, which will entail more commitment of law enforcement personnel and expense, in a city already bursting at the seams with violent crime. Hundreds of man-hours are being spent on a non-violent crime, detouring already-scarce resources from other, more important cases . . . all because some “rich”, gold-winning, Americans “smeared their country’s reputation.”

The rationale appears to be, “let’s show those gringos that they can’t lie about the cops, no matter what it costs,” and ignore that six Brazilians a day die at the hands of state security forces.

Meanwhile, Rio’s homicide squad answers an average of four murder calls a day.

Until Brazil can prioritize what it needs to do to ensure the safety of its citizens, the country will remain a mess.

UPDATED

#BREAKING Brazil sources: #RyanLochte + 3 swimmers fabricated robbery story. Video shows swimmer “fighting” w/security at gas station @GMA

— Matt Gutman (@mattgutmanABC) August 18, 2016

Elsewhere in Rio, A member of the British Olympic team in Rio has been held up at gunpoint while enjoying a night on the town.

Today’s What The Hey story:

A Brazilian judge on Wednesday issued an order to prevent Ryan Lochte and James Feigen, two of the American swimmers who claimed they were robbed at gunpoint during the Olympic Games, from leaving the country as doubts emerged over their testimony about the episode.

So, first authorities complain that he didn’t want to report it to the police, then they want to detain him. What the hey?

Luckily for Lochte, he had already left the country.

The thing is,

While controversy simmers over the episode, it is not uncommon for the police in Rio to be implicated in armed assaults of both Brazilians and foreigners.

Shortly before the start of the Olympics, Jason Lee, a 27-year-old jujitsu champion from New Zealand, said he was briefly kidnapped here by police officers and forced to withdraw the equivalent of about $800 from his bank account.

As I posted earlier, the persistent rumor is that the robbers were in a marked police car.

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We talked about this in today’s podcast,

Wednesday August 17: Brazil and the Olympics, Mexico, Venezuela and other stories….click to listen….. https://t.co/YEPv6ij1cN

— Silvio Canto, Jr. (@SCantojr) August 17, 2016