{"id":16981,"date":"2016-06-24T08:02:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/rio-olympic-organizers-unveil-village-where-athletes-will-stay\/"},"modified":"2016-06-24T08:02:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:02:35","slug":"rio-olympic-organizers-unveil-village-where-athletes-will-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/rio-olympic-organizers-unveil-village-where-athletes-will-stay\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Olympic organizers unveil village where athletes will stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO<\/strong> \u2014 The media got a sneak peak at the \u201csoul\u201d of the upcoming Rio de Janeiro Olympics with a visit Thursday to the athletes\u2019 village, the brand new complex of residential towers where nearly 11,000 athletes and some 6,000 coaches and other handlers will sleep, eat and train during the upcoming games.<\/p>\n

Local organizers said the complex, which they described as a \u201ccity within the city,\u201d is the largest in Olympic history. In addition to the 31 17-story towers, the complex includes a massive cafeteria and gym, a post office, a first aid center and bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where the soul of the games will develop,\u201d said Mario Andrada, spokesman of the local organizing committee.<\/p>\n

While athletes aren\u2019t required to stay in the village \u2014 and indeed many of the biggest-name stars may end up staying in alternative housing outside the complex \u2014 organizers said the village will be the highest-security facility of a games patrolled by 85,000 police and soldiers. That\u2019s twice the number of security forces at the 2012 games in London.<\/p>\n

A double fence will ring the perimeter of the complex, and everyone coming in and out will be subject to airport security procedures, complete with X-rays of all incoming bags and luggage, organizers said.<\/p>\n

The idea is that once the athletes and their retinue are inside the security perimeter, \u201cthey won\u2019t need to leave the village,\u201d said Mario Cilenti, the facility\u2019s director.<\/p>\n

The 3,600 units include two-, three-, or four-bedroom apartments with white tile floors and small balconies, some of which overlook a nearby \u201cfavela\u201d hillside slum.<\/p>\n

All the bedrooms are doubles, kitted out with two beds that can be extended out to 2.3 meters for the tallest athletes, as well as what appeared to be a disposable wardrobe made out of fabric stretched over a metal frame. In the living room, there are a few basic armchairs and a clothes drying rack. Crucially, the apartments all come with air conditioning units and electric mosquito-repelling apparatuses \u2014 aimed at preventing the spread of the Zika virus, which has been linked to a surge in Brazil cases of the birth defect microcephaly.<\/p>\n

Cilenti described the set-up as hitting the sweet spot between functionality and austerity \u2014 now a guiding principle of games that come as Brazil is immersed in the most severe economic recession in decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the basic,\u201d Cilenti said, adding, \u201cthere are no frills, just the basic necessities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes has repeatedly stressed that very little public money was spent on the Olympic project, with private companies taking on many of the key construction projects \u2014 in exchange for concessions from the city. Case in point, the Olympic village, which was built by a consortium that is renting the complex to Olympic organizers during the games. In exchange for building the complex, City Hall exempted the development from local zoning laws, allowing for taller-than-normal towers.<\/p>\n

The developers have long been marketing the apartments to the public at large, with buyers expected to move in after the games.<\/p>\n

Officials at Thursday\u2019s press visit declined to give any financial details about the Olympic village, explaining only the builders could provide the project\u2019s cost or the asking price for the units.<\/p>\n

However, the local Olympic committee spokesman acknowledged that with a recession hitting Brazil, sales weren\u2019t living up to expectations.<\/p>\n

The consortium behind the project, which will be known as \u201cIlha Pura,\u201d or \u201cPure Island\u201d after the games, is made up of mega-construction companies Carvalho Hosken and Odebrecht. Odebrecht is a key player in the sprawling corruption investigation centered around state-run oil company Petrobras. Graft had long been such an engrained part of the company\u2019s modus operandi that it even had a specific department whose mission was to distribute bribes, investigators in the case have said.<\/p>\n

Mayor Paes has insisted all Olympic projects are corruption-free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 The media got a sneak peak at the \u201csoul\u201d of the upcoming Rio de Janeiro Olympics with a visit Thursday to the athletes\u2019 village, the brand new complex of residential towers where nearly 11,000 athletes and some 6,000 coaches and other handlers will sleep, eat and train during the upcoming games. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16981"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}