Rio hope mood for change will boost Olympic credentials

BARACK OBAMA’S victory in the USA presidential election may have been seen as a huge boost for Chicago’s hopes of winning the bid for the 2016 Olympics, but rivals Rio de Janeiro hope the same mood for change will swing the contest their way.

Rio are up against Tokyo and Madrid as well as Obama’s home town, and are pushing the message that the Olympic Movement should deliver the Games to South America for the first time.

The final decision will be taken by the International Olympic Committee in October next year, and Rio bid president Carlos Arthur Nuzman insists the Brazilian city have much to offer.

Speaking on a visit to London, Nuzman said: “It was very important for the USA to have a new president who represents a change.

“We respect President-elect Obama from Chicago, but in the same way, we are representing the change that is needed in the Olympic movement.

“South America has never hosted the Olympic Games, and we want to bring them to a new continent and a new youth.

“We hope that we represent for the Olympic movement the same thing that Mr Obama represented in the US election.”

Nuzman insisted that his city’s bid was not pinned on giving the Games to a continent merely because it had never hosted the Olympics before.

He added: “We do not want the Games as a gift — we have already proved we are capable of organising them, as we did with the Pan-American Games last year where we built a number of venues to Olympic standard.”