{"id":5651,"date":"2016-04-20T08:01:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T15:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/sports-federations-concerned-about-venues-for-games\/"},"modified":"2016-04-20T08:01:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T15:01:51","slug":"sports-federations-concerned-about-venues-for-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/sports-federations-concerned-about-venues-for-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports federations concerned about venues for Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAUSANNE, Switzerland <\/strong>\u2014 International sports federations expressed concern Tuesday over problems with venues for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, including power failures at the gymnastics arena this week.<\/p>\n

Two top International Olympic Committee officials, meanwhile, will be dispatched to Rio for frequent visits to monitor the final preparations for South America\u2019s first games.<\/p>\n

Members of the Association of Olympic International Sports Federations reviewed the status of the Rio Games, which open in less than four months on Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey miss some very important details in each field of play,\u201d ASOIF President Francesco Ricci Bitti said at the group\u2019s annual meeting during the SportAccord conference in Lausanne.<\/p>\n

Ricci Bitti told delegates that IOC President Thomas Bach \u201cis worried like you, like me\u201d about details for Rio.<\/p>\n

Rio\u2019s sports director acknowledged to the 28 Olympic sports that the city\u2019s seven-year preparations \u201cwere not perfect or up to your expectations\u201d but said the games would be a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can assure you that the athletes will not have any problems in games time, nor any of you in your events,\u201d Agberto Guimaraes said.<\/p>\n

The comments followed complaints raised by the gymnastics federation, known as FIG, which is holding its artistic gymnastics test event at Rio Olympic Arena this week.<\/p>\n

FIG official Ron Froehlich cited power outages lasting from 15 to 90 minutes, putting at risk athletes\u2019 safety and the scoring system, plus missing equipment at an underfunded temporary training venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost important, they have problems with regard to the Omega (scoring) system,\u201d Froehlich said. \u201cFurthermore, power outages while the athletes were performing, which is a very serious issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The absence of flooring at a temporary training center venue was \u201cdue to lack of funding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier, ASOIF director general Andrew Ryan disclosed that two senior IOC officials will travel to Rio soon to work more closely on preparations.<\/p>\n

Christophe Dubi, the Olympic Games executive director, and sports director Kit McConnell are \u201cmoving permanently\u201d to the host city, Ryan said.<\/p>\n

The IOC said Dubi and McConnell would spend more time in Rio but would not live there full time. Dubi\u2019s predecessor, Gilbert Felli, was assigned to work there with local organizers two years ago amid growing concerns about Rio\u2019s readiness.<\/p>\n

In a later speech to SportAccord delegates, Bach thanked Olympic sports bodies for supporting Rio organizers, \u201ceven in challenging circumstances\u201d in Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone plays their part and continues to show this kind of solidarity I am confident these games will be a great success,\u201d Bach said. \u201cWe are all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guimaraes also addressed longstanding problems of water pollution and \u201cfloating garbage\u201d in Rio, and the possibility of officials\u2019 accommodation \u2014 including a Trump hotel \u2014 not being ready, before giving further assurances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe athletes will be happy with the results they we have achieved,\u201d he said. \u201cYou and your federations will be happy with the level of service that we will provide to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rio organizing committee head Carlos Nuzman said the impeachment process against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff would not affect the final preparations.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil today we have no involvement, no problems with any political or economic situation in the country,\u201d Nuzman said.<\/p>\n

The ASOIF meeting was the last formal gathering of sports federations before they gather in Rio.<\/p>\n

After a year of scandals damaging FIFA and the IAAF, whose former presidents and top officials are under criminal investigation, the meeting agreed to a project assessing members\u2019 standards of good governance.<\/p>\n

During the debate, International Handball Federation president Hassan Moustafa of Egypt reacted angrily to what he said was a disrespectful tone, insisting: \u201cWe are not criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In two uncontested elections, Italy\u2019s Ricci Bitti won another four-year term as ASOIF president, while C.K Wu \u2014 the Taiwanese president of boxing\u2019s international body \u2014 was nominated to continue representing the umbrella group on the IOC executive board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAUSANNE, Switzerland \u2014 International sports<\/a> federations expressed concern Tuesday over problems with venues for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, including power failures at the gymnastics arena this week. Two top International Olympic Committee officials, meanwhile, will be dispatched to Rio for frequent visits to monitor the final preparations for South America\u2019s first games. Members […]<\/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":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5651","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=5651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5651"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}