The modest charm of the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro
The organizers of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro showed journalists new residential towers in which about 11 thousand athletes and 6 thousand coaches and other professionals from the world of sports will sleep, eat and train.
(14 photos in total)
According to the organizers, the complex, which can be called a city within a city, has become the largest Olympic Village in the history of these competitions. There are 31 residential 17-storey buildings, a huge dining room and gym, a post office, a first aid center and a bank. "This is where the soul of the Games will be revealed," said the spokesman of the organizing committee, Mario Adrada.
Athletes are not required to stay in the Olympic Village all the time, and for sure many world-famous sports stars will eventually stay in other places outside the residential complex. But the organizers promise that the Olympic Village will become the most protected object, as it will be patrolled by 85 thousand police officers and soldiers. This is twice as much as during the Summer Olympics in London in 2012.
There will be a double fence around the perimeter of the complex, and everyone who enters and exits will undergo a screening procedure, as at the airport, including screening of all incoming packages, bags and other luggage. "The point is that as soon as the athletes and their accompanying persons get into the protected area, they will not have to leave the village," says the director of the facility, Mario Silenti.
All bedrooms are designed for two people: there are two beds, each of which can unfold up to a length of 2.3 m especially for the tallest athletes. In addition, there are folding textile wardrobes for clothes.
In the living rooms there are several simple armchairs and a clothes dryer. Most importantly, all rooms are equipped with air conditioning and electric mosquito control devices designed to prevent the spread of the Zika virus.
Concerns about the safety of athletes at the Olympics intensified when two Australian Paralympians were victims of an armed robbery. Paralympic yachtsman Lisl Tesch and team administration employee Sarah Ross were attacked by two men while riding bicycles in a park in Rio de Janeiro at the weekend. One of the men had a gun, and the women lost their bicycles.
About the cost of housing for the participants of the Olympics, Silenti said that the accommodation turned out to be both functional and modest, which has now become the main principle of the Olympic Games in Brazil, as the country plunged into the deepest economic crisis in many decades.
"This is the basis. There are no bells and whistles here, just basic necessities," Silenti said. Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes has repeatedly stressed that very little money from the budget was spent on the Olympics project and many of the main facilities were built at the expense of private companies in exchange for city concessions.
For example, the Olympic Village was built by a consortium that leases the complex to the organizers for the duration of the Olympics. In exchange for the construction of the complex, the mayor's office freed the company from the current local construction rules, allowing it to erect taller buildings than it should. Developers have long put these apartments up for sale, and buyers will begin to move in immediately after the Olympics.
Representatives of the authorities refused to tell any financial details about the Olympic Village, explaining that only construction companies are authorized to provide data on the cost of apartments in the complex upon request. However, a spokesman for the Brazilian Olympic Committee admitted that amid the crisis, sales did not meet expectations.
The consortium that built the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro will be called Ilha Pura ("Clean Island") after the Games. It consists of the giants of the Brazilian construction market Carvalho Hosken and Odebrecht. The latter company is a key figure in an extensive investigation of corruption in the highest circles of power, also connected with the state oil and gas company Petrobras.
According to the investigation, corruption got so used to the scheme of the company's work that it even had a special department responsible for giving bribes. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro insists that corruption has not affected the construction of Olympic facilities.
Keywords: Brazil | Housing | Interior | Comfort | Corruption | Olympics | Olympic Games | Rio de Janeiro | Modesty | Athletes | Construction