Rio Olympics Look for Boost From Rousseff Suspension – ABC News

The troubled Rio de Janeiro Olympics could get a boost from the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, according to the spokesman for the local organizing committee.

“Now that the political focus has moved forward, the games will greatly benefit,” Mario Andrada told The Associated Press on Thursday.

But the shift of attention from politics to the opening of South America’s first games could also be a detriment, thrusting the games’ myriad problems into an even brighter spotlight.

Rousseff was suspended Thursday for 180 days and now faces an impeachment trial that could remove her permanently from office.

That means interim president Michel Temer is almost certain to represent Brazil and declare the games “open” on Aug. 5 at the Maracana Stadium, though organizing officials said he would not give a speech. That protocol duty falls to Carlos Nuzman, the head of the organizing committee, and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

“We took the games this far despite the very complex political situation,” Andrada said. “So now that the situation is clearer, it gives us a single direction.”

The impeachment battle is just one of many distractions making South America’s first Olympics the most contentious in decades.

Brazil is mired in the deepest recession since the 1930s, and it’s at the epicenter of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been proven to cause a range of birth defects in newborn babies.

The country is also gripped by a $3 billion corruption scandal at state-run oil giant Petrobras with many of the same construction companies working on Olympic projects.

Despite venues being “99 percent ready,” other worries include slow ticket sales, $500 million cuts to balance the operating budget, and the death of two men last month when a newly built Olympic-legacy bike lane collapsed into the sea.

The state of Rio de Janeiro has also chopped $550 million from its security budget (about 20 percent), a big worry since the state will provide about 65,000 of the 85,000 police and soldiers to patrol the games.

“It’s undeniable that Brazil is in a very serious crisis,” former Barcelona soccer great Romario, now a federal senator, said Wednesday during the impeachment vote. “No magic tricks will take us from this quagmire immediately.”

In a statement Thursday, Bach said the IOC looks “forward to working with the new government to deliver successful games in Rio this summer.”

“Preparations for the Olympic Games have now entered into a very operational phase and issues such as these have much less influence than at other stages,” Bach added.

Sergio Praca, a Brazilian who studies politics at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said Rousseff’s suspension could help restore links between organizers and the sports ministry.

Temer almost immediately named Leonardo Picciani the new sports minister, the fourth in two years. He follows Ricardo Leyser, who held the job for just a few months.

Temer is a member of the same political party as Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes, the IOC’s major ally in organizing the games.

“This will at least give Olympic organizers someone to talk to,” Praca said. “This lack of command is very bad, but by June everything will be much clearer.”

Even if the mood improves, Praca said Brazil was apathetic toward the Olympics. The country is predicted to win about 25 medals this time — its best-ever showing — but Olympic interest pales alongside soccer’s World Cup.

There is little evidence across Rio that the games are near; no advertising, few signs of Olympic paraphernalia and little talk about it.

“The Olympics have always been a very secondary thing, like something that happened between World Cups,” Praca said. “I just don’t really see people getting geared up for it like they do the World Cup.”

He said the indifference reduced the chances for protests with the 10 percent unemployed unlikely to blame the games for their woes.

“At the Olympics, unlike the World Cup, you have a lot of events going on simultaneously,” Praca said. “At the World Cup it was basically one game, one venue and an easy target to focus attention.”

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Stephen Wade on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/stephen-wade