RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – The head of the International Olympics Committee on Wednesday, July 27 played down worries about the state of the athletes' Village 9 days before the start of the Rio Games.
Thomas Bach, the IOC president, said after arriving in Rio de Janeiro that initial concerns over poor conditions at the housing complex for some 19,000 Olympic team members had been overcome thanks to emergency repairs.
"I was speaking today with the athletes and team leaders in the Olympic Villageand they showed me their apartments and they told me how it looked yesterday and how pleased they are with their apartments 24 hours after," he said.
"This makes everybody very confident that the remaining ones will be solved in the next 24 or 48 hours," he told journalists.
About half of the 31 buildings in the complex had problems, including water leaks, blocked toilets and wiring issues. The head of the Australian Olympic team called their quarters the worst she'd seen in 5 Olympics.
More than 600 workers have been making repairs, but Olympic organizers now face allegations from government inspectors that laborers have not been given legal contracts.
The Olympics start August 5 and are the first ever held in South America. – Rappler.com