And the Winner Is

Inasmuch as I haven't watched more than a few minutes of any of the last several Olympics, summer and/or winter, I am not sure why I even bother to have an opinion about which city "wins" the honor for 2016. But I do think it is slightly curious that Brasil wants the games to be held in Rio. It seems like maybe fostering a healthy middle class might be a higher priority for the country.

I wouldn't think the civic leaders of Rio would want the international television audiences to see large parts of this city, and I'm not just thinking of the poorest parts, the favelas. Before I even knew there was a Olympic decision pending, I was walking with Heitor in the city center to the Film Festival headquarters. It was a relatively long trek and we passed a seemingly endless sequence of once-beautiful old buildings that are abandoned or so seriously neglected as to be on the verge of abandonment. I remarked that Rio could really be a beautiful city if all of these buildings were saved and renovated.

As to the civic leaders being embarrassed by parts of the city, that is clearly a fantasy. They are obviously shameless. When we checked into our hotel on the first night here, I was looking at the rack of brochures/flyers in the lobby with all of the tourist experiences available and couldn't believe it when I saw that, for R$65, I can take a Favela Tour. Maybe they'd even have to add a few extra buses to handle all of those Olympic visitors.

Perhaps, without much overt effort, the government can limit the international television coverage to the parts of the city they want to highlight. The mainstream media will probably be very happy to show endless vistas of bronze bodies on the sun-drenched beaches and pretend they're showing Rio to the world.

I suppose a lot can happen between now and 2016 but it does seem that the infrastructure of Rio isn't remotely prepared for an influx of people from around the world. The subway system is archaic and extremely limited in terms of the area it serves. The streets are gridlocked with cars and buses, and not just during rush hour. Heitor and I were on a bus near the beaches on Sunday evening and traffic was at a standstill. Of course, I don't know what the plans are if they win. Perhaps they will build a fully-contained Olympic village in some isolated area which would have a minimal impact on life in the rest of the city.

What I read in the NY Times today seemed to confirm what Heitor told me a few days ago, that the two leading contenders are Chicago and Rio, although I know that Japan and Spain are still in the running too. I see a promo touting Rio's chances two or three times every day, before every movie in the Film Festival. A big deal is being made about the fact that the Olympics have never been held in a Latin American country. Because the omnipresence of these ads has influenced my thinking, and because I feel like illogic is the order of the day, I have a gut feeling that Rio is going to get the honor.

I know that the leaders of Brasil, Japan, the U.S. and Spain are all lobbying in person for their countries, but I have this gut feeling that Obama is overexposed, not just on U.S. television, but in the world at large. And Lula is so loveable. So, Brasil it is, unless they lose on a technicality. After all, there is a distinctly Northern-Hemisphere bias to the Olympics. I believe the games are called the Summer Olympics and they are held during the Brasilean winter.