Sports Politics: The Big Interview - Rio Olympics (Part 2)

In the second part of The Big Interview, 2016 Rio Olympic Games Chief Executive Officer Leonardo Gryner discusses the final year of preparations for the Games.

One of the most public controversies sparked by Rio de Janeiro’s hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games has followed the inclusion of golf – back in the Games after a 112-year absence - and the need to create a new course and club house.

This has led to a need for land to be secured for development, notably in the Barra da Tijuca, one of the four zones to host the Games and one of the wealthiest areas in the city. It will be home to the Olympic Park, the athletes’ village and the golf course.

In common with many of the development areas in the city, there has been massive disruption and some protests, particularly by demonstrators who believe the creation of the golf course has taken place in an area that was a conservationists’ favourite, where the natural vegetation and animal population has been severely disturbed.

‘An environmental crime’ said some critics. Other protests came from people who claimed they were being forced to leave their homes, allegations denied by Leonardo Gryner, the deputy Chief Executive Officer for Rio 2016.

“The golf course is ready now, we are finishing the club house and working on the grass to make it as perfect as we can,” he said. “We are cutting the grass every day and there are no law suits! It is Olympic grass now and we are getting ready all the time.

“Has there been any controversy around the image of the Games from the golf? I don’t think so, not really. This was a very damaged and very degraded area from the past. The vegetation and the animals not in good condition. It was a devastated area. Since the golf course is built, there has been a great restoration of wildlife, with the trees and with the animals coming back. There has been a return by so many…We have a lot of birds, the capivaras are back and the alligators. There is a cycle. Nature takes care of it, the whole thing.”

Gryner conceded that the golf course was being irrigated and the grass cut daily to stimulate a high quality growth. He said also that for the citizens of Rio, some of whom believed that one of the two other ‘luxury’ golf courses could have been developed, golf needed explanation as it was seen as such an exclusive sport. To that end, he said, “the City Hall has launched a website ‘Explica.golf’ that explains everything.”

As to claims that the community in Vila Autodromo, a small favela that occupies part of the main Olympic Park construction site in Barra da Tijuca had been forced to move, he said this was not true.

“We think the city has acted properly for this community and offered them new housing if they wanted it, or let them stay if they wanted to stay,” he said. “There were no forced evictions of the people. They were offered a choice. Some moved. Some stayed.

“Of course, they are surrounded by a lot of construction work and they are in a re-development area, like so many people in the city. They will have new roads and a new public transport hub right near them. It will be much better than before when it is all finished.”

Asked about budget worries, Gryner said the figure of 7.5 billion Brazilian Real, as published on the official Games website, remained the limit. “We keep it balanced,” he said. “But we don’t build anything within our budget. All the construction works belong to the government.”

Explaining this further, he said the government had divided its budget into a matrix of responsibility and a legacy budget. The first was to build the venues, including the velodrome, and to make sure they are ready and the second all other civic projects including work on the port, the communications, roads, the revised BRT tramway system and the new subways.

“That is pretty much all the urban constructions,” he added. “We have worked to keep the costs under control and there has not been any increase in exponential costs. We had to say in our bid that we would propose our forecast budgets for 2008 and the same for 2016 in dollars. We are pretty much there.

“We have worked to do this in a rational and efficient way with no extra spending and no eye-catching stuff and in this we thank the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and international federations for helping us to keep the costs under control.”

One spectacular job done, however, is the creation of the Rio subway system’s new Line 4 connecting Ipanema to Barra da Tijuca, an engineering feat that includes the world’s longest tunnel between stations, an underground stretch of five kilometres.

“We have done all the main work, there are no more critical works to do,” explained Gryner.

“The tunnel goes under the mountains and the track is laid. We are confident about the deadlines and working to a tight schedule. We will use the same trains in Line 4 that we use on Lines 1 and 2 (there is no third line) and it will be ready to go into some normal operation in September or October.”

Interestingly, he added, the regular Rio subway drivers are being re-trained to operate the trains that use the new line and run through the tunnel. “It is such a long stretch,” he said. “There is five kilometres without a station. Normally, there is a station around every 800 metres.”

This transport infrastructure will, for regular visitors to Rio, transform the travelling experience in a city that has been undergoing a wider transformation. It is an epic project, funded as much by private enterprise as the public purse and fuelled by the enthusiasm of the people of Rio.

The final judgement on its success will not come until August 21 next year when the iconic Maracana stadium hosts the closing ceremony.