Rio 2016 Preparations More Than 55 Per Cent Complete, Say Organisers

By Christian Radnedge

The organisers of the Rio 2016 Olympics insist that preparations for the Games are more than 55 per cent complete and maintain they will be finished on time and on budget.

Joaquim Monteiro, ambulance president of Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic office, and Carlos Arthur Nuzman, president of Rio 2016, gave an update on the Games project at the Pan-American Games in Toronto, Canada.

Despite fears over the vast amount of construction work going on at the four Olympic clusters in Rio, Monteiro assured reporters that there were no concerns about being ready for the start of the Games on August 5.

“All works are on time, according to schedule and within the planned budget,” he said adding: “More than half of the Olympic facilities are ready.”

Concerns that Rio would not be ready on time were exacerbated by frequent delays to construction projects for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. But the South American nation’s sports minister George Hilton, who was also at the press conference, said that the doubters were proved wrong last year.

“We will make a monumental Olympics,” Hilton said. “It will be important that our stay here [in Toronto] we can learn a lot, to be able to also develop some actions that will guide the events of the next year in Rio. And I want to take this time to learn from experiences. There was a feeling that we would have problems at the World Cup and it was a success.”

In February, the International Olympic Committee visited Rio to check on preparations and said they saw “solid progress” on work but that the city was entering the most intense phase with aggressive deadlines on the golf course and velodrome specifically.

The coordination commission visits Brazil again next month for the ninth visit which will be almost precisely one year before the Games.