Rio Olympics Organizers Makes Round-The-Clock Adjustments To Address Olympic Village Readiness
All's well that ends well. Australian team start moving in to the Olympic Village after much publicized complaints.
The Rio Olympic Games are set to open on August 5 or barely 2 weeks away. However, there has been an apparent lack of preparedness at least where the Olympic Village is concerned. Its opening on Sunday has turned into a fiasco after the Australian team declared it as unsafe and not ready to be occupied.
The Olympic Village of the Rio Olympics
The Olympic Village is a 31 building complex in the west of Rio Janeiro. It was designed to house more than 18,000 expected athletes and other delegates for the coming weeks. Of the 31 buildings, Olympic organizers admitted that only16 of them are operational.
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When all the housing issues are addressed, the athletes will be residing during the 17-day Olympiad in a self contained community which has a gigantic eating hall, a restaurant and different prayer rooms for different faiths. The rooms are fitted with anti-mosquito devices as prevention for the Zika virus.
Australian Team
Australia's chef de mission, Kitty Chiller said in a statement on Sunday, "Problems include blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed and dirty floors in need of a massive clean."
Chiller has also said that they smelled gas in some of the apartments they visited. There was also the issue of walls that had water dripping from the ceiling. They tested the apartment by turning on the taps and toilets on some of the floors the inspected.
Rio de Janeiro mayor, Eduardo Paes, seemed to have made matters worse however when he made light of the complaints and said in jest about having a kangaroo outside to make the Australian delegation more welcome. He also said that compared to the one in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the Brazilians made it better and more beautiful.
More Complaints
Complaints are also coming from other sources. The Brazilian team who were supposed to have already been lodging in the brand new apartment complex since Sunday are still staying in hotels instead. Someone from the British delegation confirmed of having similar problems as those of the Australians but said that it was common for new structures.
New Zealand chef de mission Rob Waddell said that although the Olympic Village was not completely ready when he checked it last week, everything has been resolved. The Kiwi athletes have now began moving into their assigned quarters.
Through all the complaints they have been getting, Rio Olympics organizers have made the necessary adjustments even while saying that birthing problems are normal for all Olympic games. In fact, even the Australian delegation has started to move in and were impressed by how fast the organizers resolved the issues.
Other Issues
The Rio Olympics, the first to be held in South America, has been struggling with a variety of problems. It is already plagued by low ticket sales, fears over the Zika virus and security concerns due to lack of police resources.
