Following Rio de Janeiro’s selection as one of the four Candidate Cities bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and Rio 2016, said it was the right time for South America. “The IOC focuses on the universality of the Games and all the continents have a chance. South America, which has never hosted the Olympic Games before, has been conquering a unique space because of the organization of large international events and Brazil is one of the leaders of this movement. The time for the recognition of all the efforts made to the benefit of youths in South America has now come”.
Nuzman added, “in the report issued by the IOC, Rio’s venues were assigned higher rates than those in Chicago. When could we ever have imagined that a Brazilian city could have better competition venues than a large American city like Chicago? This significant development results from the efforts made towards the delivery of the Pan American Games Rio 2007 with the construction of Olympic level venues.
“Our security was assigned a seven rating and having security assigned a seven in the world we live in today deserves applauses. This is yet another legacy of Rio 2007, when we had all the law enforcement agencies working in unison. I believe, just like the IOC report states, that we will have to work harder on the issues of accommodations. We have this deficit in Rio, but we will be doing everything in order to make good progress on this requirement also”, he said.
Carlos Robert Osorio, General Secretary of Rio 2016 said Rio has a very good master plan. “Our project is compact and 56 per cent of the venues are fully ready because of the Pan American Games Rio 2007. We intend to offer compact Games with an optimum operations solution. We must now re-evaluate some point of the candidature file and make them even more efficient”.
