By François CardonaPosted 17-01-2020Modified 17-01-2020 at 10:16
In Rio de Janeiro, justice ordered the closing of the sports facilities of the 2016 Olympic Games considering that the security conditions were not met to accommodate the public.
From our correspondent in Rio de Janeiro,
Main cause of the closure: security certificates which have not been obtained despite the organization of several events in recent months around sports facilities, some of which have been abandoned.
The prosecutor in charge of the file regretted the “ succession of provisional licenses - a situation which has lasted for more than three years ”. He recalled " the water leaks in the central tennis court ", but also the problems of the roof of the velodrome, which was supposed to be built with a non-flammable material and which however had already caught fire twice.
Stolen equipment…
The situation of the facilities designed for the Olympic Games is therefore critical. The ban affects in particular the Olympic Park, an area of 118 hectares - some of which host sporting events, and where concerts are organized on the outskirts.
However, justice has noted the lack of surveillance of the area, some parts of which are very damaged and where equipment has been stolen. It is precisely because of the holding of events bringing together " thousands of spectators " that justice has estimated that this situation could " lead to tragedies ". The magistrate behind the ban recalled that more than “ 1,500 construction defects ” had been identified on the former Olympic site while the Olympic Games had cost extremely expensive in Brazil: nearly 11 billion 200 million euros . At the end of the competition, several corruption scandals, concerning overcharged sites, had erupted.
The crisis did not help
Most of the sports facilities were to be converted after the Olympic Games for a " new life " and that they would be useful to the inhabitants of Rio. Unfortunately, it is not the case. In the Olympic Park, for example, a covered stadium, the Arena of the Future, had certainly been designed as a temporary structure, but it had to be transformed into several schools, 4 in all, to receive pupils from Rio de Janeiro. In three and a half years later, nothing has been done.
The Olympic swimming pool also had to be dismantled and converted into a sports structure for the young people of the city. It did not happen. The economic crisis that hit Brazil after the Olympics prevented it from funding the necessary works. Today, these two enclosures are in very poor condition, poorly maintained and unusable for sports competitions.
In Rio, the legacy of the Olympic Games is today largely lacking.
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