The legacy of the Rio Games?
For all the triumphs of the two-week Rio Games, I have found this one hard to get into. There’s a sick feeling, not about the sacrifice and tears of competitors giving it all they can, but the sacrifice of the Brazilian people. Teachers, and others, who haven’t still been paid for months to help finance this show have also struggled to get into the Olympics. According to the respected Datafolha agency, most Brazilians have had no interest in the Games. Most expect the Games to hurt Brazil (The Olympics are notorious, wherever they are held, for promising growth and then delivering anything but a growth shot). Bumper stickers have rearranged the Olympic rings into a four-letter word. These Games are further away than any other in recent memory from the ideals of the founder of modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin. Coubertin advanced the need for an event every four years that would honour of “the constant renewal of mankind”. He preached a gospel of the power of sport. “Have fait