Blog 16_And the winner is...Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro has been named as the host city of the 2016 Summer Olympic, being the first ever South American city to be selected by the International Olympic Committee.

Rio de Janeiro won in the last round of voting by a comprehensive margin of 66 votes to 32 votes over Madrid. The other competitors included Chicago and Tokyo, which had been voted out in the first and second round respectively.

After IOC president Jacques Rogge revealed that Rio was awarded to host the Games of the 31st Olympiad, the Brazilian president was in tears.

"The other countries made proposals. We presented a heart and a soul." President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told reporters. "I confess to you if I die right now, my life would have been worth it."

The winning city used the slogan "Live your passion!" (Click here for bid video) President Lula promised in his speech to the IOC that Rio will "deliver an unforgettable Games" and is determined to show "the passion, the energey and the creativity of the Brazilian people".

All games are planned to take place inside the city, bringing "dynamics to the Games and facilitating the athletes' interaction", according to the bid website. There will be seven competition centres in four Olympic regions, with football matches held in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Salvador and Sao Paulo.

Currently there are eight existing venuess that can and need to be renovated for the Games. While three of them are new, they fail to meet the size and technical requirements of the IOC.

Although it is a big boost for this Brazilian city with 6 million inhabitans, the road ahead does not look particularly easy.

To start with, Rio does not have enough hotel rooms. The IOC questioned the reliability and accountability of the strategy proposed by Rio: it is going to increase the number of hotel rooms available before 2016 but some of them are on private cruise ships.

Security is another big issue. According to TIME, the number of homicides in the has risen up to 9.9% this year. One fifth of the population are slum-dwellers. Officials are considering flooding the city with troops as they did for the Pan Am Games in 2007, although this will create an intimidating atmosphere for a festive event such as the Olympics.

While Rio de Janeiro is celebrating this historical moment, representatives from Madrid, Tokyo and Chicago are shocked and disappointed.

In Chicago, citizens are extremely surprised and devastated when the city was kicked out in the first round with only 18, out of the 94, votes. Chicago was seen as one of the favourites before the voting.
Brazil is also the host of the World Cup in 2014.


Pictures courtesy of BBC, AFP and the New York Times