For media, arrival day in Rio is all about logistics; clearing customs lanes, figuring out transport, getting to your hotel and unloading 80 lbs of camera gear, then getting to the MPC (Main Press Center) out in Barra to get a photographer vest, and finally getting a meal behind you. The flight into Jobim Airport can be stunningly beautiful one minute as you watch the sun rise over the mountains, then a bit jarring as you descend over a dense favela. If you are going, get a window seat.
The local volunteers and staff made sure things went very smoothly; it wasn't quite up to comparison to London's endless battalions of cheerful volunteers at every corner, every Underground station, really every turn, but when help was needed, it was there; we had a ride to the hotel in less than 10 minutes, upbeat guidance through the first encounters with Olympic security processes, and even friendly interactions with folks who had to say 'no' to wrong turns while poking around a bit.
Speaking of security, it is certainly visible; so far, heavy security is not obvious inside the main venues , but at the airport, and along the roads into town, and along the beaches, the military presence is abundant, no nonsense, and pretty well armed. The Poland-based Reuters photographer who rode in the car with us has spent the past several years in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and other conflict zones pulled out his camera and was ripping off photos of the armed military; when I asked about his regular assignments, he said that his editor asked him to come photograph the Olympics so he could "take it easy for a little bit."
The town seems as yet unfazed by all the Olympic hullabaloo; Copacabana is as bustling as always, with shopkeepers standing at their store entrances playing with customers' dogs, folks running along the beach trails, and plenty of people commuting to and from work.
The Olympic mascots Vinicius and Tom welcomed folks to the airport; if you did not know, they are named for the bossa nova masters Vinicius de Morales and Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim, the composers of heaps of bossa nova classics, most notably "The Girl from Ipanema." The bar in which they saw the girl (who in real life is HelĂ´ Pinheiro) and wrote the song is a couple blocks from the finish line of the rowing course.
A long walk through the Olympic Park found the place quiet and overall "ready;" I would say it did not have a burnished, ready to rev, new car shine to it, but there weren't people swinging hammers everywhere, and it showed a clear potential that will mainly be realized by the arrival of a few hundred thousand people. Once they have done a run through the place, everything will look "normal;" it should break in nicely.
To see these new, never-used, massive venues lying in wait is an odd experience; small groups of workers walking across vast, open, and empty spaces between large and strangely-shaped buildings in an otherwise almost abandoned terrain isn't quite spooky, but it is getting there. That the biggest party on Earth will explode onto these grounds in five days is extraordinary.
The swimming venue in particular is an odd one; the visible skeleton of the structure is enclosed by a semi-transparent, paneled mural that appears to have been put together willy-nilly, without regard to which panel went where. The $38 million venue got glowing reviews in its test events, however, and folks who have been inside this week said it looks tremendous. And it is unique in Olympic history in a couple ways: first, it was designed to be taken apart and rebuilt and reused in another location, and second, it has 15,000 holes that were drilled into the structure to make a natural ventilation system. Now we know how many holes it takes to fill an aquatics stadium.
At the rowing venue, things have been a little tricky lately; there was enough wind to close the course a couple afternoons ago, and today an unusual west wind made the east side of the lake unusually choppy (the prevailing wind is a sea breeze from the east coming from Copacabana). The course crisscrosses from the northeast to the southwest, so the start was a little bumpy for the smaller boats, while the bigger boats just cruised along.
So it's feet on the ground in Rio; check out the gallery to see what we saw today.
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08/02/2016 11:05:46 PM