Environmentalists Leverage Olympics to Get Attention

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (August 8, 2015) – Yachts and fishing boats converged Saturday on Rio’s Guanabara Bay, the site of next year’s Olympic sailing events, to protest the authorities’ failure to tackle severe pollution.

More than a dozen sailboats, eight small fishing craft and a swarm of canoes were among the fleet embarking from Marina da Gloria, the inner city harbor where Olympic athletes are already preparing for the 2016 Summer Games.

Rio’s original bid to host the Olympics included the headline promise of cutting pollution by 80 percent, but officials now concede this has no chance of being achieved any time soon.

“It was propaganda,” said environmentalist Sergio Ricardo, “a completely unrealistic goal.”

Environmentalists see the run-up to the Olympics as a unique — possibly final — opportunity to pressure the government into making good on a clean-up program that has been running with little effect for two decades.

Saturday’s protest would not have been immediately visible to many Rio residents, unless they were among those sunbathing on one of the nearby polluted beaches. However, a boat carrying a large contingent of Brazilian TV crews and other journalists alongside the demonstrators ensured an impact.

“That’s the idea of this,” said one of the organizers with the Baia Viva group, Nahyda Franca, 58. “We’re one year from the Olympics and need to get attention.”

Sailing team members preparing for the upcoming Aquece Rio Olympic Test Event on August 13-22 appear to have set aside any worries.

Guillaume Chiellino, manager for the French team, said his sailors are taking medical precautions and that independent tests of the water will be made. However, he was “delighted” to be in such a “mythic bay.”

Olympic sailors are often stranded far from the buzz of the host city, as was the case in the 2012 London games. Being in Guanabara Bay this time means a chance to take center stage.

“For our sport it will be grand to have the images under the Sugarloaf Mountain and the Corcovado,” said Chiellino. “I think we can be the sport of these Olympics. That, I think, will help us forget that the water isn’t transparent.” – Yahoo Sports