Rio's Olympic legacy largely falls short of bid promises

RIO DE JANEIRO — In one cheery promise in the 2009 bid that won Rio de Janeiro the rights to host the Summer Olympics, there’s a promise that “more than 200 young low-income cultural mediators will be trained in foreign languages, Olympism and Brazilian culture ... [and] will act as tour guides for the delegations to the Games.”

Six months out from the opening ceremony, are young, low-income polyglots polishing their global hostessing skills and readying themselves to receive foreign athletes?

The answer: Sort of.

When asked about the 2009 promise, Rio 2016 spokesman Philip Wilkinson pointed to a partnership between the committee and the company Education First to offer free online English courses to public school students, volunteers for the Games and taxi drivers. But languages other than English won’t be emphasized — at a recent press briefing Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada added that organizers were still looking for volunteers who spoke less-studied languages. “We are very interested in people who speak Arabic, Japanese and Korean,” he said.

The status of that project is a reminder that, while sporting venues are largely going up on time and already taking shape to be TV friendly for the Aug. 5-21 competition, a series of side proposals to improve the infrastructure and quality of life here that were also to be a part of the Olympic package have had a more checkered track record.

Rio’s candidature file seven years ago projected a confidence that now feels like the other side of the looking glass compared to Brazil’s dramatic economic downturn and current political turmoil. The country is entering its second year in a recession, one for which some analysts are only predicting a full rebound after 2020.

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At the time of the candidature, the bid referred to the country’s “robust economy even in the current global economic climate” and said “Rio 2016 will place Brazil in the global spotlight, reinforcing its status as a major and growing economy.” The file referred to hosting the 2014 World Cup and the Summer Games as “two great growth drivers” and predicted a “fiscal surplus,” not the austerity measures President Dilma Rousseff would announce after she was reelected in late 2014.

Brazil faces numerous malaises, including repeated calls for Rousseff’s impeachment, mounting job losses and inflation, and on top of it all, an alarming public health epidemic as the mosquito-borne Zika virus spread across the country, suspected to be behind a rash of infants born with abnormally small heads. A long corruption investigation centered around the state oil company has implicated many of the country’s largest construction companies, with some responsible for Rio’s 2016 Olympic infrastructure. That includes the Brazilian giant Odebrecht — part of the consortium building the Olympic Park — whose CEO was arrested last June.

The bid book promised an Olympic experience that will be “inclusive, memorable and positive” and that “the people of Rio will see long-term needs addressed, with improved infrastructure and opportunities.”

Much scrutiny of the Olympic legacy has focused on large projects that have been greatly scaled back, such as the effort to clean up pollution in the Guanabara Bay or an upgrading initiative for low-income favela communities praised by urban planners until it was largely abandoned. But a closer look at the 2009 promises for this year’s Olympics also shows that many other proposals are nowadays being carried out in a partial or modified way, were abandoned, or are not on track to happen by the time the city hosts the event.

USA TODAY Sports examined legacy projects related to public education, environmentalism and public housing improvements promised in the candidature file:

Bid book promise: “Rio 2016 will leave a legacy of 14 pre-Games training sites outside Rio and 29 within Rio, located in local communities and next to public schools.”

In the Deodoro sports complex in the far western part of Rio, a park that will host BMX and slalom canoeing opened in December and has been enthusiastically used by locals for its swimming pool. Indeed, inside the Olympic Park, an arena which will host handball this year will be transformed into four public schools, according to Sheila Machado, a media advisor with the Municipal Olympic Company. Wilkinson also noted that venues in the Olympic Park will be open for public use after the Games.

However, the accessibility of those venues to some the area’s original residents is questionable: More than a thousand homes in the scattered low-income favela communities around the Olympic Park have been demolished in the leadup to the Games. That includes the iconic Vila Autódromo favela, which abuts the Olympic Park and has only about 60 families remaining. The newcomers to the neighborhood will instead be the residents of the 31 towers of the Olympic Village, which are being sold as luxury condos after the Games in a development called the “Pure Island.”

Bid book promise: A“sustainability management plan” which would “set a new standard for urban transformation and sustainability in South America.” 

Amongst the promises were to neutralize the emissions generated by the Games’ preparations by planting 24 million trees in the state of Rio de Janeiro, including reforesting 40 hectares around the Olympic Park in an effort with “surrounding communities, local residents and underprivileged groups,” and also to use 100% low-emission fuels in the event’s transport system.

The Rio state environmental secretariat said in a statement that the carbon emissions for the Olympics were estimated to be 3.5 million tons, and that the state government was responsible for countering half of that amount — and that through 2,500 hectares of trees planted since 2009, the government had compensated for half of that halved goal, or, 800 tons of carbon emissions.

It did not respond to the query related to the reforesting of 40 hectares around the Olympic Park, an area that has seen rapid real estate growth as it became the zone in Rio with the highest population growth rates.

With regards to the Games transport using 100% low-emissions fuel, Leonardo Santiago, a spokesman for the Bus Rapid Transit lines which have been presented as a major legacy project of the Games, said the fuel currently used in the BRTs was 10% biodiesel. That comes from renewable sources and is biodegradable, while the other 90% of the fuel is common diesel.

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Bid book promise:  Improvements in housing as a legacy of the Games. In one part, the bid promises four “legacy villages” which will include more than 24,000 rooms around Games sites.

The “Pure Island” Olympic Village is an exclusively commercial project, selling apartments for a price tag of about $400,000 each.

As far as housing with a social function, Machado pointed to the Vila Carioca in a neighborhood near the Olympic Park called Anil. The Vila includes 66 five-story buildings and 2,640 rooms. During the Games, the space will host security forces. But the project’s relationship to the sporting event is questionable: They are funded under the federal government’s flagship Minha Casa Minha Vida (“My House, My Life”) low-income housing initiative. MCMV is countrywide project that launched in March 2009 – shortly before the successful bid – and which in 2015 alone delivered 1,220 units per day to families, according to the government.

Bid book promise: Renovating Rio’s port zone, are area rich in history and culture but long neglected for urban upgrades, was a prominent promise in the candidature file. The latter promised “significant improvements” to housing in the area, whose residents are largely working class and have deep ties to the afro-Brazilian history that centers on the region, which was once a bustling slave port.

So far there hasn’t been much visible improvement for housing for the residents in the port zone. Luciene Braga, a spokeswoman for the Urban Development Company for the Port Region, said in a statement that the city government had appropriated properties for future housing projects and was waiting for federal funds to begin construction.

She added that the port renovation “is a long-term project, and the production of social-interest housing is not something tied to the city’s bid to host the Olympic Games.”