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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The second day of the 2016 Olympic rowing regatta was called off on Sunday due to problems caused by rough weather, organizers said.

The decision followed a day of difficult conditions on the opening day on Saturday, with some rowers complaining that the races should have been postponed. One boat capsized and several others were nearly swamped.

Winds again whipped up the waters on the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon on Sunday morning.

"Racing is postponed and will not take place today due to technical installation difficulties caused by the strong winds and the forecast for the afternoon which indicates adverse weather conditions," an official communique said.

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1 hour ago, Sagacious said:

How are the attendance so far?

many many many empty seats in most venues.

Australian rowing coaches robbed at knifepoint near Impanema as Rio crime targets Olympics

Australia's Olympic team has again fallen victim to criminals in Rio de Janeiro, with two rowing coaches robbed at knifepoint, sparking an order to athletes to stay indoors at night. (so much for the party)

One of the coaches was grabbed around the throat before the attackers fled with credit cards, mobile phones and an Australian team blazer.

The beach attack follows a wave of crime targeting foreigners in the city for the Games, including the gunpoint robbery of Australian Paralympic sailor Liesl Tesch and team official Sarah Ross in June.

The Australian Olympic Committee's (AOC) security chief Greg Nance told Seven Network that the coaches were shaken by the incident.

Edited by paul
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Rio 2016 : Olympic security chief attacked after opening ceremony before knife-wielding robber shot dead by police

The Olympics security chief was attacked as he left the Games opening ceremony by a knife-wielding robber who was shot dead by a cop.

Felipe Seixas was walking to his car near the Maracanã Stadium early on Saturday when he was set upon by four men brandishing knives.

A policeman with him shot one of the assailants dead and the others fled.

Authorities have attempted to hush up details of the shooting, which is a monumental embarrassment to crime-plagued Rio 2016 bosses.

Portugal Minister of Education was robbed at knifepoint as he headed back to his hotel from the Olympic cycling road race

Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, 39, was stopped by a man brandishing a blade near his hotel in Ipanema on Saturday afternoon.

He and aide Rita Roque were forced to hand over cash and mobiles

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Ticket sales seem to still be a huge problem with over 1,000,000,000 tickets still unsold.

More than 1/2 the opening ceremony tickets were sold for 17$ or less, sucks f you paid like hundreds!

Rio Games Far From Sold Out, Ticket Sales at 82 Percent

Another day of Olympic sports played out before empty seats led to an admission from organizers that only Friday’s Opening Ceremony has so far sold out.

Demand for tickets is running at 82%, considerably below London four years ago even though they are roughly half the price.

Not even Brazil’s Olympic soccer team in its first match at the Games has attracted a capacity crowd and on Sunday the women’s sevens tournament was played in front of at best half-filled 15,000-seater Deodoro stadium while only a few thousand spectators watched the women’s cycling road race.

At Rio Olympics, plenty of good seats still available

Attendance, or the conspicuous lack of it, has been one of the trouble spots in the first days of Olympic competition in Rio. For lower-profile sports on Day 1, venues had swaths of empty seats, sections that stood nearly unpopulated, whole front rows free for the taking. Even for the prime-time events such as U.S. men’s basketball, Brazilian beach volleyball and the swimming races, fans were slow to their seats and the venues didn’t fill up. Organizers said they have not sold out a single event so far, apart from the Opening Ceremonies.

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Edited by paul
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The heavy wind is causing some trouble with the trim.

Workers repair damage caused by high winds at the Olympic diving venue.

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Workers repair damage caused by high winds at the Olympic diving venue.

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The tennis center

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The swim venue

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Volleyball venue, banners blow upside down

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Edited by paul
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Paul, thanks for the counter-coverage!

And people called Atlanta a disaster.  Atlanta 1996, in retrospective, was a delightful picnic compared to this Shambolooza!  And the Centennial Green of Atlanta was more stately than the Rio Puke Green used in these Games.  

Edited by baron-pierreIV
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Rio Olympics 2016: Media bus attacked at Games

Rio de Janeiro: An official media bus at the Rio Olympics has been hit by projectiles travelling between one of the Games' four main competition zones and the main press hub.

An American passenger on the media transit bus, Lee Michaelson, is convinced the vehicle was hit by gunshots. The bus driver, however, told her the projectiles were rocks.

A government official has told Fairfax Media the media transport bus was hit by stones, but claims windows were shattered by gunfire are being investigated.

Two windows were blown out.

"Two shots," Michaelson told USA Today.

"It was very quick – pop, pop.

"The driver said, 'Don't worry. It's a rock, it's a rock.'

"There is no way that could have been a rock."

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On 09/08/2016 at 0:11 AM, Alexjc said:

Will someone in the British TV sports announcers crew go out and buy Helen Skelton a pair of trousers! :D;)

 

 

According to our own reporter CAF, it's too hot for trousers!

Quote

I spend my day in my area of Ipanema - did some laundry - walking around outside (but not vey much) it is very warm here 27°C (for Central Europeans it is hot) and its very humid (78% humidity)...

For today 21°C is forecasted and I am glad about it - that is a normal Central European summer temperature - I wonder how the Cariocas are able to stand temperatures in their summer... In the streets you can see often people walking around in swim trunks

 

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Before:

dying-of-thirst.jpg

 

Rio de Janeiro Olympic vendors struggling to supply fans with food, drinks

Olympic venues in Rio de Janeiro are struggling to supply enough food and beverages to fans, though officials said supply will soon meet demand.

People have been allowed to leave venues during events in the search for food and water "because this eases the pressure" within the venues, Andrada said.

Andrada confirmed the International Olympic Committee had complained about the lack of provisions.

Rio de Janeiro Olympic organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada said additional food and water is being delivered, promising "new food trucks, more efficient water supply, and free water supplies for the public standing in line."

After?:

hungry.jpg

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7 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Where was the so-called PanAm 2007 and World Cup 2014 experience??  :blink:

How Brazil’s Lula Conned the World

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Then again, when Rio won the competition in 2009 to host these games, Brazil wasn’t forecast to look like it does today—with a budget deficit equal to some 8% of gross domestic product, inflation near 10%, two years of economic contraction and a cesspool of corruption scandals.

In 2009, President Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) had been at the helm for more than six years and was somewhat of a world rock star. His hip rhetoric denigrated the economic liberalism of the 1990s while hyping a new and improved brand of socialism with a samba twist.

Much of the region bought Lula’s 2.0 version of big government. Concerns about the return of left-wing Latin populism and its potential damage to entrepreneurship and economic growth were met with assurances that this time would be different.

The 2016 Olympics were supposed to showcase the socialist paradise he had cultivated: an urban utopia mixing affordable housing, national industrial champions and orderly public-transportation networks to provide a tranquil—and environmentally approved—living experience.

Rio is a microcosm of Lula’s Brazil, where bureaucracy runs things from the top down and human beings are an afterthought. The only thing missing in this Rio analogy—so far—is the corruption that flourished at the federal level during 14 years of PT government.

Brazil’s politicians aspire to first-world grandeur but insist on preserving third-world institutions.

more...

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Rio authorities step up security after bus comes under ‘gunfire’

While authorities said it was not immediately clear what struck the bus, a retired US Air Force captain who now writes about women’s basketball said she was certain it was gunfire.

Britain’s Press Association on Wednesday quoted Lee Michaelson, who was on the bus Tuesday, as saying that she instinctively hit the floor when she heard the sound of gunfire and “hollered to the others … ‘Get down! Get down! We are taking fire.'”

“I know what a gun sounds like,” she said. “It was the sound before I ever saw the glass (shatter) or anything.”

Michaelson said both the bus driver and Olympic officials made mistakes. The driver slowed down and pulled over, which she said was “precisely the opposite of what he should have done, which was to put the gas on and floor it.”

When they returned to the Olympic park, she said, there was no medical help waiting, despite some passengers being injured and bleeding.

A dozen journalists on the bus suffered minor injuries.

(Journalists lie on the floor of the bus after a window was shattered.)

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21 minutes ago, paul said:

Rio authorities step up security after bus comes under ‘gunfire’

While authorities said it was not immediately clear what struck the bus, a retired US Air Force captain who now writes about women’s basketball said she was certain it was gunfire.

Britain’s Press Association on Wednesday quoted Lee Michaelson, who was on the bus Tuesday, as saying that she instinctively hit the floor when she heard the sound of gunfire and “hollered to the others … ‘Get down! Get down! We are taking fire.'”

“I know what a gun sounds like,” she said. “It was the sound before I ever saw the glass (shatter) or anything.”

Michaelson said both the bus driver and Olympic officials made mistakes. The driver slowed down and pulled over, which she said was “precisely the opposite of what he should have done, which was to put the gas on and floor it.”

When they returned to the Olympic park, she said, there was no medical help waiting, despite some passengers being injured and bleeding.

A dozen journalists on the bus suffered minor injuries.

(Journalists lie on the floor of the bus after a window was shattered.)

 

Well then, safety has been compromised. I think we can now easily put these games on the All-Time Worst List. Just a matter of how many more incidents come later that'll affect its standing. Enough with the Pro-Brazilian nonsense. This can't be defended anymore.

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10 hours ago, Helder Carvalho said:

These game are a trainwreck, no way is Rio ready to host them

Nonsense. Complete crap. Here on the ground, live is pretty darn good. There are probably 1,000,000 things going on. As with all Olympics, 0.001% are glitches. The media can set the narrative my focusing only on the 0.001%. This is the same media that predicted we would all die o Zika. Ignore them. 

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14 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

And people called Atlanta a disaster.  Atlanta 1996, in retrospective, was a delightful picnic compared to this Shambolooza!  And the Centennial Green of Atlanta was more stately than the Rio Puke Green used in these Games.  

Considering that Atlanta 1996 was/is in a "developed" nation, yeah, relatively speaking, they should've done a better job. And do we need to be reminded of the American tourist that was stabbed to death the day after the Beijing 2008 opening ceremonies. Not to mention the spray-painted "green" grass in Beijing. Can't imagine what Beijing 2022 is going to bring us next! Winter athletes will need gas masks next, along with BYOSnow. :rolleyes:

14 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Paul, thanks for the counter-coverage!

Yeah, sure. leave it up to Paul for all that "counter-coverage"! For Tokyo 2020, I'm sure he'll be posing all about the Fukushima disaster & its aftermath, as he did during the 2020 campaign three years ago. He needs a Gold medal for enjoying to spin everything outta proportion, just like the "media" does! :lol:

1 hour ago, zekekelso said:

Nonsense. Complete crap. Here on the ground, live is pretty darn good. There are probably 1,000,000 things going on. As with all Olympics, 0.001% are glitches. The media can set the narrative my focusing only on the 0.001%. This is the same media that predicted we would all die o Zika. Ignore them. 

Precisely!

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Atlanta had its issues (one of the most infamous ones were the numerous glitches in electronics which is why they never used IBM again for the Olympics) but to be fair the attack at Centennial Park could had happened anywhere, and at least they prevented (well, a cop did) a massive death toll, so security at least did its job.  Meanwhile, not even a week has passed and we already had this bus incident which kinda brings back the ghosts of the embarassing 2010 African Cup of Nations when members of the Togo football team were murdered in their bus. What is tiring me the most is the apologist attitude of many brazilians online who seem to not take very well any kind of criticism when the problems are obvious. 

In retrospective, I think Jacques Rogge got conned very hard by Brazil and Lula's promises, much like all of socialism in the region which ended up tanking badly, specially in my native country. They will think it twice before doing the same mistake again. Good thing they didn't got conned by either Madrid or Istambul in 2013 and picked a more realistic/grounded to reality option.

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Chicago Tribune

 

I'm generally not one to rip the media — that would be like A-Rod slamming narcissists — but did we ever blow it in the run-up to the Rio Games.

This headline in the Telegraph, a British publication, reflects what I mean: "Why Rio Olympics is on course to be most crime-ridden games."

The amazing part is that the story ran Thursday, before thousands of athletes managed to march during the opening ceremony without getting mugged.

Stories like that set the narrative. They scared off Olympics fans from coming, leading to empty seats in the venues.

 

It was media hysteria at its worst.

Speaking of hysteria, remember that letter sent to the World Health Organization and International Olympic Committee calling for the Games to be postponed or moved because of the Zika virus? More than 200 scientists, doctors and health experts signed it. Since I've arrived, I've seen the same number of mosquitoes as deep-dish pizzas — none

Back on the crime topic, I asked American beach volleyball standout Casey Patterson, a veteran of international competition who lives in Southern California, about reality versus perception.

"I've had no issues," he said. "I've been to Brasilia, Sao Paulo twice, Rio three times. This is an amazing place, an exciting and special place. I wouldn't go walking around Compton at midnight. Big cities are dangerous when you go to the wrong places. Same thing here."

Most of media members are staying in Barra, a safe, moneyed area where you would expect to pass a Cheesecake Factory.

Copacabana is true Rio, described as gritty if you're blocks from the beach. That's where I found myself walking after midnight Saturday after I ditched my Uber. (The driver declined to follow Waze and ended up in gridlock.)

While I roamed around in search of a new cab, Copa had a vibe like Manhattan's Upper East Side at night — 2nd or 3rd Avenue. Not the safest place in the world but hardly threatening.

Scan the internet, and you can certainly find tales of crime here. A bullet flew through the roof of a media tent at the Olympic Equestrian Center. A dead body was found outside Maracana Stadium, site of the opening ceremony. Two Australian rowing coaches were reportedly robbed at knifepoint.

Most of the crime we've heard about, though, is photographers having their expensive gear swiped.

Yes, crime occurs in Rio. This is a city of 6.3 million where, sadly, high unemployment and extreme poverty exist.

Traffic is brutal here, and some of the smells make you wonder if waterboarding could be any worse. But enough with the click-baiting stories that paint this place as some kind of urban apocalypse.

tgreenstein@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @TeddyGreenstein


Teddy GreensteinContact ReporterOlympic Bureau

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^And that's coming from the Chicago Tribune (the city that lost to Rio de Janiero)! And don't forget the hysteria of the "counter coverage" on this very site.

Rio 2016 is suffering from the same fate as Athens 2004 (as far as some of the venues being half empty), cuz the media scared a lot of spectators away from there, too, with their post 9/11 scare rhetoric! :rolleyes:

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