Rio 2016: A successful Olympic dream amidst crises

The crowd cheered loudly on Copacabana beach when Rio de Janeiro was announced as the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games. For the first time, a city in South America would host the biggest sporting competition on the planet. The "Marvellous City", located between the sea and the forest, had seven years to become an Olympic metropolis.

"[Organizing] an Olympics is like a war operation," Leonardo Espíndola, a Rio de Janeiro prosecutor who, in 2016, was the state's representative on the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, said

"Holding more than 50 competitions simultaneously in the same city, accommodating, feeding and transporting all these athletes and the population to the Games at the same time, there is no precedent for operations of this complexity. It's a very intense 16 days," he says.

Competing with heavyweights such as Chicago (United States), Madrid (Spain) and Tokyo (Japan), cities that are more developed and ready, Rio de Janeiro was betting on the opportunity for transformation to seduce the IOC and the judges.

"Compared to cities in developed countries, there's no doubt that Rio de Janeiro had fewer resources and less structure. But for Rio, the Olympic Games would be an opportunity to make a difference. They could serve the city. So that was the strongest argument for bringing them to Rio," Espíndola added.

A political, financial and health crisis

While Rio de Janeiro was preparing to welcome athletes from every continent, Brazil was in political turmoil. A nation in crisis, anti-government demonstrations and the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff characterised the months preceding the Games.

New budget

The Zika virus

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