Rio Olympics Officially Gets Under way Today

South America’s first Olympics officially get underway today as the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio de Janeiro was illuminated in Brazil’s yellow and green national colours on Thursday as the city put the finishing touches to its preparations

Workers rushed to install wiring and put up signs at venues as the Olympic flame made its way through the city of 6 million carried by a succession of sportsmen, stars and even a Nobel laureate, to cheers from thousands of residents who succumbed to the excitement of the Games.

It was a far cry from the previous evening, when riot police had used stun grenades and tear gas to clear protesters from the torch’s path in a poor suburb of Rio, fuelling complaints that the Games have ignored the city’s poor. Those anti-torch demonstrations – the second in two days – underscored simmering social tensions in Latin America’s largest nation amid its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and a political crisis that has deeply divided the country.

That resentment was nowhere to be seen on Thursday as the torch progressed through the well-heeled districts of Barra de Tijuca, where the Games will be held. “It’s impossible to explain the emotion of carrying the torch,” said Brazil’s double World Cup winning soccer captain Cafu, who joined Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus in carrying the Olympic flame on its penultimate day.

 

Some 500,000 foreign visitors are descending on the iconic beach city. They are protected by 85,000 police and soldiers, more than double the number of security personnel in the 2012 Games in London.

 

The brief abduction of three Swedish tourists by armed men on Wednesday after they stopped to take photos near a dangerous slum highlighted the security challenges facing organizers. The three were released unharmed, authorities said.

Rio Olympics Officially Gets Under way Today