Brazil Olympics: Just Call It The Anti-Beijing

Posted by admin in GENERAL, STADIUM on 10-02-09    No Comments


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Clearly the IOC’s has had enough of uptight cities strutting their stuff at the Olympics. The choice for Rio de Janeiro as site for the 2016 Summer Olympics was all about the partying and some sort of ball or another. But probably not so much about the tech.

At least at first blush Rio ain’t gonna be getting the sports geek on. As far as sports facilities goes, you can forget the Bird’s Nest or swimming cube or whatever. Rio is pretty much plain vanilla for venues. There is the old Maracana Stadium, that is the largest in South America with 89,000 capacity which is being renovated to hold 120,000. The new Estdadio Olympica Joao Havelange that seats about 44,000, which looks like something the Brewers might play in honestly. And the HSBC Arena which houses basketball games — and Rod Stewart concerts. And that is about it, apart from the tremendous sailing venue, which will be a welcome change. And oh yea the beach volleyball, which by our humble estimation will be the sport to watch.

But seriously, at least from here, 6 years out, the story is exactly one word: Soccer. With essentially five major local professional teams feeding players into the Brazilian Olympic squad. And a country of football maniacs who expect nothing less than a gold medal. Expect a riot and a contraction in GDP — nobody will go to work for a month — if they don’t take down the gold. Now that we think about it, this sound great: Loud, disorganized, and crazy unruly, and tons of fun. We are booking out tickets now.

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