Rio Continues To Be A Dangerous Place For Olympic Athletes

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Olympians being robbed at gunpoint, knifepoint and even snatched off an airliner by the police as they try and get out of the country after being mugged.  What?   Feels like every day someone new has been accosted in Rio.

You may have  read about the two Australian rowing coaches who were robbed at knifepoint near Ipanema Beach.    This is in addition to a member of the British olympic team being robbed at gunpoint while “enjoying a night out on the town.”   The Guardian, reports that British olympians are being advised to stay within the confines of the olympic village, and to wear nothing that identifies them as olympians if they do leave the safety of the olympic compound and to not risk riding in taxis.

The report of the British incident follows earlier reports of two American swimmers who were trying to get out of the country after being mugged while out on the town with teammate Brian Lochte.   Or so they said.   Lochte, got out of the country, and his two teammates were trying to do the same, when they were pulled off their plane and forced to turn over their passports to the Brazilian authorities.   The Brazilians, apparently, are alleging that the mugging did not happen as the Americans say it  did.

Regardless of what may have happened, even if they might have provided conflicting stories to the police (which isn’t uncommon when people are under pressure), if no one was injured is it really worth it for Brazil to turn even more bad PR into an ongoing international incident with the United States?   Really?  Are they kidding?   Some are probably still having a diffcult time forgetting the man who was shot to death outside Maracana Stadium during the opening ceremonies.

Welcome to Rio, where athletes and coaches are mugged, robbed and then maybe even forced to stay in the country against their will.  A city where  raw sewage flows in the streets and out into the ocean and even the sand on those beautiful beaches may be infected.   A really bad place it turns out, to hold the Olympic Games and a tesimonial to the idiocy of moving the games to a different country every four years simply to make more money for the IOC, which bleeds off millions from emerging nations like Brazil, which can’t even afford to set up a decent sewage system for its poverty-stricken citizens.   Oh, did I mention the Zika Virus?   There is  of course, that too.   So even if you do get the hell out of there without being robbed, shot or detained by the authorities, you still risk bringing home a bug.

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