The summer Olympics are two years away and the excitement of having the games in Rio have subsided quite a bit. The preparations to the facilities in Rio have hit a critical level to the point that the International Olympic Committee has called London to see if their facilities are still available.
Of course nothing is set in stone and Rio could get its act together in time for the 2016 Games, but the very fact that the IOC has inquired about London’s facilities has to have some feeling uneasy.
According to the London Evening Standard:
An informal approach was made by Olympics bosses to discover whether enough venues from the triumphant 2012 London Games could be brought back into use.
The disclosure follows growing panic at the International Olympic Committee over the shambles in Rio, where organizers are badly behind schedule.
IOC vice-president John Coates has called Brazil’s preparations “the worst I’ve experienced”. He told a Sydney conference last month that construction had not begun on some venues, infrastructure was significantly delayed and water quality was a major concern with just two years to go…
A source told the Standard: “At a comparable planning stage in 2004 Athens had done 40 percent of preparations on infrastructure, stadiums and so on. London had done 60 percent. Brazil has done 10 percent – and they have just two years left. So the IOC is thinking, ‘What’s our plan B?’
There you have it, the IOC is not happy with the developments in Rio and are doing some research on alternative sites. This would be the first time since 1976 in which an Olympic games was moved from the original winning city. In 1976, Denver, Colorado was awarded the winter games only to have it moved to Innsbruck, Austria.
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