With just over two months to go the race to get things right for the Opening Ceremony of the XXXI Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is underway.
This, however, is not a race that the organisers seem likely to win. The games are in trouble for a number of reasons.
The Comite’ Olimpico B Do Brasil (Brazil Olympic Committee) faces a multitude of problems that just might make those clamouring for the games to be postponed, be taken seriously.
There is the recent impeachment of the president of the country Dilma Rousseff; the threat of the Zika virus and the race to get the facilities finished in time.
The recent decision by the Brazil Senate to impeach its president Dilma Rousseff over claims that she made improper use of budgetary procedures to bolster her 2014 re-election campaign, has added a political twist to the problems facing Guyana’s South American neighbor.
As president of the host country, Rousseff was scheduled to open the games August 5, at the Maracana Stadium.
This now seems unlikely despite the fact that Rousseff has vowed to fight the impeachment trial, a process which could take longer than the time remaining for the games to commence.
Then, of course, there is the threat of the health of competitors and visitors in the form of the mosquito-borne disease known as the Zika Virus.
According to a report published in the Harvard Public Review, the dangers associated with this particular strain of the Zika virus and the short amount of time health officials have to develop control measures, are all factors that can contribute to the postponing of the games.
Problems associated with the disease includes severe birth defects in infants and high fever and muscle pains in adults and the World Health Organization is expected to release a statement advising travel precautions related to the Olympics soon.
As if those problems were not enough, the scourge of doping has again reared its head.
Kenya and Russia’s track and field teams are in jeopardy of missing the Olympics due to doping scandals.
Kenya’s anti-doping agency was declared “non-compliant” with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code, throwing the country’s participation in the games into question.
According to reports, the WADA compliance review committee said Kenya should be sanctioned because its recently-passed legislation setting parameters for its national anti-doping agency did not fully comply with the code.
Kenya has already missed two previous ADA deadlines this year for passage of legal authorization to underpin its national anti-doping agency.
Russia has been an entirely different affair. The Russian Track and Field team has been suspended from the games since November when allegations of state-funded doping in the sport surfaced.
According to reports, at the Sochi Olympics, Russian officials allegedly took clean urine from athletes months before the games and used soda containers and baby bottles passed through holes in the wall of a testing lab to evade doping tests.
These claims, outrageous though they might seem to be, were made by none other than the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov who made the allegations to the The New York Times.
It is not clear whether Rodchenko’s application for political asylum had anything to do with the claims, but the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) will decide shortly whether Kenya and Russia’s track teams will be eligible to compete in Rio.
There is also a question mark over whether some of the venues might be ready in time for the Opening ceremony.
As such the Rio Olympic Games face the distinct possibility of being one of the most problematic Olympic Games in the history of the Olympic Movement, that is, if the games are not altogether postponed.
