London 2012 blog

When I left Heathrow on Friday 13th en route to Rio for the XV Pan American Games I was not sure quite what to expect as this was my first trip to South America and my first experience of the Pan American Games.

Rio is renowned as being one of the most beautiful cities in the world with its beaches, lagoons, mountains and forests. It is also well known for the annual carnival, the figure of Christ who surveys the 8 million Cariocas who live in the city below and of course football - the other religion of the Brazilian people.

However Rio is also infamous for the gangs that roam the enormous sprawling shanty towns (Favelas) which provide homes for millions of people but also provide refuge for the the warring gang members. So which side of Rio would I discover and what would I make of it all?

What I discovered was a city of real contrasts with luxury apartment blocks and shopping malls full of designer labels co-existing with poverty on a huge scale. My taxi driver claimed that people that live in the Favelas are the happiest poor people in the world as they know what is important in life - Football and Carnival, however the scale of these breeze block “cities” is immense.

Rio is indeed a stunning city and the off shore islands and beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana did not disappoint but the most striking thing for me was the warmth of the local people and the incredible welcome that we received as visitors to their city and their Games.

Rio is hosting the XV Pan American Games between 13 and 29 July, there are 34 sport disciplines with 5,500 athletes competing from 42 different countries from Southern, Central and North America.

The Games take place on a four yearly cycle, and usually fall one year ahead of the summer Olympics, the first Pan American Games took place in Buenos Aries in 1951.

Along with the other major regional games such as the Commonwealth Games, African Games and the Asian Games they are important in their own right as they provide athletes with a key milestone within the 4 year Olympic cycle, but they also provide host cities such as Rio with the opportunity to demonstrate to themselves and to the world what they are capable of delivering as often their ultimate goal is to host the Summer Olympic Games.

It was obvious that a great deal of planning had gone into the games in terms of venues, volunteer programmes and security, and my overwhelming impression was that the organizers (Co-Rio) had managed to pull off an excellent event on a large scale that athletes, officials and spectators thoroughly enjoyed.

Clearly there were challenges especially in terms of venue delivery, test events, recruiting the workforce and power supplies, but despite these challenges they succeeded. In my view there were two main reason for this

1. The volunteers were outstanding and despite limited training they were enthusiastic, well informed and just thrilled to be hosting the games.

2. The Brazilian supporters, whether there were 40,000 at the football or 400 at the water polo they were colourful, loud, good humoured and certainly knew how to celebrate.

The venues were impressive and included existing facilities that had been refurbished, new build and temporary facilities. The iconic Maracana Stadium, built in 1950 for the World Cup and one of the symbols of Rio, had been upgraded to host both the opening and closing ceremonies and the football finals.

At the other end of the spectrum was the brand new Joao Havelange Stadium which has been built especially for the games and hosted the athletics and the group stages of the football.

It is a stunning open-plan stadium which has been deliberately built in one of the poorer districts of Rio as a symbol of regeneration and after the games will be the new home to one of the Rio based football teams such as Flamengo, Fluminense or Vasco da Gama.

The three other new facilities in the centre of Rio are located at the Nelson Piquet racing circuit (which used to host the Brazilian Grand Prix before it moved to Sao Paolo), and are a 15,000 multi purpose indoor arena which hosted the Basketball and Gymnastics, a 5,000 seat aquatics centre and a brand new 1,500 seat velodrome with a Sander Dauma designed track.

These venues all provide the next generation of athletes and spectators with excellent facilities that will attract major sporting events to Rio but have also been clearly built with the 2016 Olympic bid in mind.

Perhaps the most spectacular venue was the beach volleyball at Copacabana beach which was a 4000 seat temporary stadium with views of the beach, city and Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Outside of the city in the Deodoro Military Complex the city have constructed two additional facilities for Equestrian and Shooting which will be used primarily by military personnel post-games but which will also be available for local and international sports events.

In terms of security there was a strong military presence around the city at all times and a well organised screening process at all venues. There were reports of isolated muggings and pickpockets operating in the busy beach areas at night but no major security incidents.

As regards the action on the field of play we witnessed some very high quality competition with USA, Cuba, Brazil and Canada heading the medals table throughout. The approach of the USA is interesting as they do not put out their A team in all events but used some of the events to give their less experienced athletes a chance to compete at a major games.

However in other sports, especially the team sports, they do send out the “big guns”. My personal highlight was the women’s final of the indoor volleyball between Brazil and Cuba, two of the best 5 teams in the world. This was an outstanding match which went to 5 sets with Cuba eventually coming out on top having saved two match points.

The match took place at the Indoor arena (Maracanazhino) in front of 15,000 passionate Brazilian fans and was a night to remember. I still have the Rio 2007 song “Viva Esa Energia” ringing in my ears.

My overall assessment of the games was that the organising Committee and the Cariocas were able to put on a very successful games despite the many challenges that they faced.

There was a tremendous spirit and enthusiasm at all of the venues, the athletes and officials spoke very highly of the venues and organisation and I am sure that the IOC members that visited Rio after the IOC session in Guatamala City will have been given a lot to think about in relation to Rio’s aspiration to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016.