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Rio Olympics: Let the warnings begin

Chris Young

At this point, the Rio Games are in countdown mode -- but it seems more ticking time-bomb than a cue for a world party. As the Olympic torch goes around Brazil on the road to Rio, the calls and warnings are piling up like dead fish in the Games' rowing lagoon.

University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran argues in a Harvard Public Health Review column that the IOC and the World Health Organization are being irresponsible in continuing to plan for an Olympics in Rio:

"Simply put, Zika invasion is more dangerous, and Brazil's outbreak more extensive, than scientists reckoned a short time ago. Which leads to a bitter truth: the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games must be postponed, moved, or both, as a precautionary concession."

Major League Baseball did just that in moving a May 30-31 series planned for Puerto Rico to Miami, due to Zika concerns. Australian golfer Marc Leishman pullled out of the Olympics first golf tournament in over 100 years last week.

But Zika is just one item on the list of concerns and controversies affecting these Games, a list that includes pollution, infrastructure questions, a backdrop of national political turmoil and economic woes - and violence and security worries.

In the wake of a gang shootout Saturday on the road between Rio de Janeiro's main airport and the downtown and several Olympic venues, retired Brazilian football great Rivaldo delivered a blunt message to tourists: Don't come. In an Instagram post, the former Selecao captain included a picture of 17-year-old Ana Beatriz Pereira Frade, killed by a stray bullet during a Saturday morning robbery along a main road connecting the airport and several Olympic venues, and issued a warning:

"I advise all those who plan to visit Brazil or come to the Olympics in Rio to stay in their own countries. Here you'll be running the risk of death."

Rio de Janeiro, pop. 6 million, registered 1,202 murders in 2015, according to official figures.

Rivaldo also referred to Rio's public health crisis, saying that "the public hospitals lack the resources" to treat Brazilians and tourists.

Rarely do national heroes like Rivaldo, a World Cup winner and Olympic bronze medallist, issue such pointed criticism, and calls for moving the Olympic party or scrubbing it altogether are even less frequent. But as the reality of the Games' Aug. 5 opening draws closer, it's pretty much a given this isn't the last we'll hear of such talk.