For Pan-Am Games, the Big Race Is to the Starting Line
By LARRY ROHTER
Published: May 22, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/world/americas/22brazil.htmlRIO DE JANEIRO, May 21 — At the edge of Copacabana Beach, a giant electronic display is counting down the days to the start of the Pan-American Games here. Whether the organizers and all of the venues will be ready on July 13, when the clock strikes zero and the 17-day competition starts, is another matter altogether.
Rio sought the Games as a showcase for its natural beauty and its desire to become a world sports center. But that was before huge cost overruns, construction delays, strikes, court battles and internal bickering complicated the picture.
“Our goal is to put on the best possible Pan-American Games under the circumstances that we face,” said Cláudio Versiani, the city government’s special secretary in charge of the Games. “We are aware that there have been complications, but we are confident we will meet our obligations.”
Sports and government officials attribute some of the busted budgets and delays, which have pushed the cost of the Games past $1.5 billion, to a decision taken to upgrade arenas and stadiums to North American and European levels.
“We decided to go the extra mile and dream larger,” said Carlos Roberto Osório, the general secretary of the organizing committee. “We had some real deficiencies in our sports facilities, all of which have gone 30 years without substantial investment.”
But Juca Kfouri, the country’s leading sports commentator, disputes that. He sees the expensive race against the clock as part of a pattern of corruption that he says is endemic in the country’s sports and political establishments.
“This is the chronicle of a mess foretold,” he said, alluding to a novel by Gabriel García Márquez. “Everyone knew when Brazil won the right to host the Games that the moment would arrive when the organizers were going to blackmail the government and that all the normal regulations on bids and oversight would be thrown out the window in the name of haste and avoiding a stain on Brazil’s reputation.”
Last week the government accounting office released a report complaining that some projects had cost as much as 10 times their original budget. Despite a recent acceleration of efforts, the report noted, organizers were “in violation of an agreement signed in 2002 that determined that all installations necessary for the Games would be in condition for use and previously tested at least 90 days before the opening.”
For the Brazilian government, much more is at stake than this set of events, in which the United States and 41 other countries will compete. Brazil hopes to host the World Cup of soccer in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, so any failure at the Pan-American Games could be a fatal blow to those aspirations.
During an inspection tour here in January, prompted by growing concerns about the delays and ballooning costs, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a big sports fan, announced that he would personally oversee the construction process.
It has already helped that the governor who took office that month was an ally, replacing one of Mr. da Silva’s bitterest enemies. But even with money now flowing, the accounting office estimates that at the current pace of construction, some facilities will not be ready until September.
“We’ve undertaken a commitment to do the Games, and we have not only to comply with that, but do the best Games ever seen in the Americas,” Mr. da Silva said when he announced he was stepping in.
It is already too late, though, to rescue some key projects. Rio’s original bid included a pledge to build new subway lines, including one connecting the airport with the main competition venues, but the expansion was soon shelved.
A commitment to clean up polluted Guanabara Bay, just offshore of downtown, has also fallen by the wayside. “There is so much garbage out there that I’m afraid of busting a $4,000 plank by colliding with a refrigerator” floating in the grime, one sailing skipper recently complained to a Brazilian magazine.
As the start of the Games draws closer, concerns have also been expressed about security. In March, the secretary of public security for the state of Rio de Janeiro, José Mariano Beltrame, said that he was afraid that the Games could “turn into pan-demonium,” in part because new weapons and equipment had not been delivered and there would not be time to test them properly and train security agents in their use.
Among other potential problems, the village that will house the more than 5,500 athletes is just a short walk from Cidade de Deus, or City of God, a violent slum made famous by a movie of the same name.
But government officials dismiss such concerns as groundless and prejudiced. “The fact of proximity to a community where poor people and workers live is not in itself a cause of concern, and does not demand that any additional measures be taken,” Brazil’s minister of sports, Orlando Silva, said during a recent interview.
In an attempt to democratize the Games, thousands of young people from poorer neighborhoods, including slums controlled by heavily armed drug gangs, have been invited to serve as guides during the Games. But when President da Silva and Sérgio Cabral, the governor of Rio de Janeiro State, addressed them at the main stadium in April, a fight broke out between rival factions.
Security has been complicated by a spat — which Mr. da Silva called a “discussion” — between the armed forces and the police over who is in charge and therefore entitled to control of an estimated $200 million in new equipment.
Last month that situation led to the dismissal of two former generals and four former colonels who had been hired to oversee security and antiterrorism efforts, and who had argued against using the slum youths as guides.
In a letter made available to the news media, the senior officer in the military group, Gen. Sérgio Rosário, said that “political decisions” had accounted for his dismissal and complained that the federal police lacked experience and legal authority to run the operation.
Since Brazilians are used to last-minute scrambles, the betting here is that in spite of the worries about deadlines, costs and the quality of construction, all of the athletic venues will be ready for the start of the Games. In the meantime, the clock continues to tick.
