Sports Politics: The Big Interview - Rio Olympics (Part 1)

The Rio 2016 Olympics are on budget, on time and gathering public support, according to the Games’ deputy Chief Executive Officer Leonardo Gryner. But, as he revealed during a 45-minute interview to mark the ‘one year to go’ landmark for the first southern hemisphere Summer Games since Sydney 2000, making prudent progress has not been without its difficulties.

Tackling the challenge of bringing the world’s greatest sports events to one of Latin America’s most delightful, but infuriating, cities has created many a controversy, much opposition among the cariocas, an exhaustive struggle to beat widespread pollution and an incessant public relations campaign to ensure the positive messages about both the thrill of hosting the Games, but also their legacy.

“We have run a series of surveys, every month, to test public opinion and we now have 67 per cent support from the general public,” Gryner said in an exclusive interview. “And one of the main reasons for this is that people are witnessing the realisation of the legacy already, not waiting until 2016. They can see it and experience it.

“The work done to the city transport infrastructure, to the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit system), has cut their daily journey times each way by 30 minutes. It is the same for the Trans-Oeste and with the Trans-Carioca. The people see it. There is already a sense of achievement because many of the deliverables are finished already, just as we promised in the bid.”

Gryner believes this sense of progress has given the city pride in its role as host to the Games, which will launch on August 5, 2016, with a spectacular opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium, where the 2014 World Cup final was played.

“I think the people are confident now,” he explained. “And I think the city and the government has been very smart in doing so many deals for private investment in the project. It means that public investment has been less than 50 per cent…”

He added that for every single Brazilian Real spent on the Games, five have been invested in legacy projects – in the improved infrastructure for the future in Rio where, he conceded with revealing honesty, a widespread culture of pollution and degradation had been confronted.

In places, this was manifested, he said in raw sewage flowing directly into drains, and refuse and debris – including sofas and other household items – being thrown into rivers. Action has been taken, he said, in all areas.

“We have one year to go now and we are celebrating finishing some of the works,” he said. “We have a lot to show so we are excited to show you how the Olympic Park looks now. And, yes, we are happy that with a year go to we are exactly where we expected to be with the dates for the works and with the infrastructure. Everything is being delivered on time for the test events next month (August). We are happy we made it.”

He said the organisers’ next big challenge was to turn an organising structure, chiefly concerned with planning, into an operational one, more concerned with sporting logistics.

Gryner said: “We are finishing planning now so we have to do things, become operational. We call it the start of ‘Olympic World’. It is a new phase for us, a change in the way we work, and the power now moves to the venue managers. They are now leaders with responsibilities.”

Gryner said that the biggest challenge was the operation to clean up Guanabara Bay, the centrepiece of Rio’s unique coastline where the sailing venue is located. He stressed that the Games’ organisers had “never said it would be (completely) clean”.

“It is a huge bay, very, very big and it would take 10 years to fix all the problems,“ he insisted. “This bay is made of the water from 11 rivers that arrive from 16 different cities around the bay. To clear this bay you have to stop them throwing sewage and garbage in the rivers. That is a huge challenge.”

He said the width and depth of the shipping channel to the port of Rio ensured a constant change of waters with clean sea water washed into the bay where organisers have launched a successful fight to reduce the pollution to acceptable international standards. A test event for sailing was declared a success and, he said, the waters had been examined and measured to ensure they passed a test every month.

Asked specifically about conditions at the Marina da Gloria, one of the city’s most popular areas in the neighbourhood of Gloria in the Flamengo Park cluster, Gryner said the first of the two sailing test events had proved they were winning the battle with pollution.

“In 2009, we had 12-13 per cent of it treated,” he said. “Now (July, 2015), we have 50 per cent, four times more, and by 2016, it will 80 per cent. That is a good enhancement of the conditions and caused by the Olympics.”

New ‘eco barriers’ were installed in the mouths of the rivers, he said, to prevent waste and debris flowing into the bay and new sewage treatment plants and more efficient removal systems were taking care of the human waste. “One of the big problems is that people have thrown everything, all their garbage, even sofas, into the rivers,” he said. “So we had to prevent that.”

A state government programme led the way supported by the use of seven ‘cleaning boats’ that provided manual clearance of the water during the test event. A further six ‘eco boats’ for quick response to any oil tanker spillages in the bay are on standby too.

“Da Gloria is in much better shape now,” he said. “One of our problems in Rio is the illegal connection of sewage waste directly into the drainage system. Yes, the ‘gutter drains’ that carry sewage from houses. Now, we have a robot that goes in the drains and it is identifying and fining the people who do this.

“But the garbage can still be a problem when the river levels rise, but we have measures for that, for cleaning it up so that is not such an issue…”